Close Call

by J M Gregson

  He had barrowed and spread the hardcore steadily through the morning, had it laid and roughly levelled within the wooden shuttering by one o’clock, allowing himself the full hour he needed for his sandwiches and his rest, so as to be strong enough to complete the day he had planned. When the ready-mixed cement had been delivered as he had ordered at two o’clock, he had been ready and eager to go.

  The woman had looked through the window of the house and marvelled at his strength and his industry as the sweltering afternoon passed without any alteration in his steady, unrelenting application to the task. Her husband had come home half an hour ago, reluctantly offered his assistance, and departed indoors with relief when it had been politely rejected. The task was almost complete now. The last of the mixture had been put into the big rectangle formed by the shuttering and the surface of the concrete had been sprayed and smoothed. The place where the big lorry with the mixer behind it had dumped the two cubic metres of ready-mixed cement hours ago was being hosed down and the surface restored to normal.

  A good job done. A week’s labour completed. A satisfying as well as a lucrative day. When you worked for yourself, there were financial advantages as well as job satisfaction in working yourself towards exhaustion.

  He was so intent on leaving the black tarmac of the driveway as immaculate as it had been when he had begun his operations that he did not hear the police vehicle ease itself softly to a halt in the road beyond the gates. The two occupants of the car stood and watched him silently for several seconds without him sensing their presence. Then a soft Herefordshire voice said, ‘Good job, that. Might even employ you myself, when I can afford an extension to the house.’

  Jason started in spite of himself. His concentration on the last stages of his task had been so complete that he had no idea that anyone was there until Bert Hook spoke. Now the detective sergeant smiled at him over the gate, ruddy-faced, unthreatening, approving of the thoroughness and quality of the work he was assessing. He said, ‘You know me, Mr Ritchie. And this is Detective Sergeant Ruth David.’

  A young, dark-haired woman, tall and willowy, observing him steadily through dark-green eyes, taking in the curves of his torso and his biceps, the tattoo of barbed wire winding itself round his upper arm. She nodded at him with a small, quick smile when Hook mentioned her name; she seemed to Jason to be taking in far more about him than he wanted her to know. He tried desperately to re-focus, to divert his attention away from his physical tiredness to the mental challenge presented to him by this unexpected arrival.

  He said rather stupidly, ‘I don’t know how you knew I was here. I thought no one knew where I was working.’

  ‘Mrs Holt told us we might find you here,’ said Hook, not unpleasantly. ‘We tried your mobile number, but it didn’t appear to be in operation.’

  ‘I switch it off when I’m working. Don’t want calls disturbing me when I’m on a job like this. You have to work the ready-mixed stuff quickly, or it goes hard on you.’ He gestured towards the immaculate rectangle of shining wet concrete, wondering why he was telling them this, aware that the phrases were nothing more than an innocent preamble to something much more demanding.

  As if he shared that thought, Hook, speaking as affably as if this were a social call, said ‘Things to discuss, Mr Ritchie.’

  Jason looked automatically towards the house, towards the people who had paid him to work so hard through this long, hot day. There was no sign there that anyone had realized that he had visitors. He said, ‘I’ve almost finished here. I’ll be with you in a minute.’ He resumed his hosing of the driveway, trying unsuccessfully to thrash his brain into furious action.

  You didn’t know just what they knew and what they didn’t know. That was always one of the problems with the fuzz; you wanted to be quick on your feet, but you didn’t know at this stage exactly what you were having to defend yourself against. He turned off the hose, dragged the big shovel for one last noisy scrape across the path, and rattled it against the pick and the rake, asserting the virtues of honest labour against whatever accusations they had brought here with them.

  He was conscious of the woman sergeant’s eyes watching his every move, totally unembarrassed in her assessment of his movements. When he had got his tools together and put on his tee shirt, she spoke for the first time. ‘Seems you’ve been economical with the truth, Mr Ritchie.’

  ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘Telling us porkies. Never a good policy, that, with the police. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.’

  A reference to his previous brushes with the law. He didn’t like that. ‘I don’t know why you should think I’ve—’

  ‘I can understand that you wouldn’t want us to know about some of the things you’ve been up to. I wouldn’t want CID anywhere near them, if I were in your shoes. But you should understand that when you lie in a murder enquiry, you’re asking for trouble. Lying invites us to examine your other activities.’

  ‘Which is what some of our officers have been doing, since we spoke to you on Tuesday,’ said Bert Hook, as amiably as ever.

  ‘If I gave you a wrong impression, I can only apologize,’ said Jason. He was conscious of how foreign this speech pattern was for him, how ponderous and artificial his evasions sounded in these phrases.

  ‘More than a wrong impression, Mr Ritchie. You told Chief Superintendent Lambert a string of lies. Very stupid thing to do, with an eminent man like that.’ DS Ruth David seemed to be getting deep satisfaction from telling him about his mistakes.

  ‘Lies. I can’t think what you mean.’ Jason could envisage exactly what she meant, but he could think of nothing sensible to say. His automatic reaction was to deny the charge of lying, even when he knew that his denial could not possibly be successful.

  DS David shook her head impatiently. ‘You said you had not known Robin Durkin before the last few weeks, that you had had no dealings with him before the Saturday night on which he died. We now know that you were lying about that, quite deliberately and blatantly. Very interesting to us, that knowledge is, seeing that Mr Durkin is a murder victim.’ She allowed herself a smile of satisfaction, whilst Jason strove to dismiss the idea that these assertions were just the preliminaries to putting him behind bars.

  This time Jason said nothing, feeling belatedly that silence might be preferable to the useless denial which would constitute a further lie.

  Bert Hook smiled at him, as if he was dealing with no more than a village boy who had been caught scrumping apples. ‘You also gave us statements about your own conduct and way of life which were completely untrue. Misleading the police in the course of their enquiries, I’d call it.’

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t. You can see that I’m running a perfectly legitimate one-man business here. It’s hard enough making an honest living these days, without being accused of things you haven’t done.’

  From the recesses of a pocket in his comfortable trousers, Hook produced the notebook he had used when he and Lambert had spoken to Ritchie on Tuesday. ‘Let me quote your own words to you, Jason, about your previous appearance in court on a GBH charge. “That po-faced woman judge told me to go away and keep my nose clean, and I’ve done just that. For five years, now.” Not true, is it, lad?’

  ‘You buggers never give up, do you? Once a villain always a villain, as far as you’re concerned.’ But Jason couldn’t get any conviction into his voice. He suddenly felt the need to sit down on the low garden wall. He stared dumbly at the brightly coloured marigolds and geraniums and wished he was anywhere but here.

  ‘It’s the National Crime Squad who pursue the big boys in drugs, Jason. Along with paedophiles, arms traffickers and major financial criminals. You’ve been getting yourself into some very bad company, Jason.’

  ‘I can’t think what—’

  ‘They employ fourteen hundred police officers and four hundred and fifty civilian personnel. Many of them work under cover, throughout England and Wales. They pick up all kin
ds of useful information.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with me.’ But Jason was aware that he was sounding increasingly desperate.

  Ruth David permitted herself a sorrowful smile and a rueful shake of the head at the wrong-headedness of this young man, who was probably no more than six or seven years younger than her. ‘We’ve been talking to the National Crime Squad about you since you spoke to us on Tuesday, Mr Ritchie. Well, not really about you personally: you’re not important enough for that. They’re concerned with much bigger fish than you. But occasionally, because they’re only interested in catching these bigger fish, a criminal tiddler is allowed to swim into their net and out of it again.’ DS David paused, as if to savour her metaphor.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man. This has nothing to do with me.’ But the denial was wooden, automatic, and all three of the trio in this strange little exchange beside the garden gates knew it.

  Bert Hook was avuncular, almost kindly. ‘Best admit it, Jason. Let’s get on and get out of here, before we bring out everyone in the area.’

  Jason had to resist the impulse to blurt out everything to this understanding man. He still didn’t know how much they knew. ‘What am I being accused of?’

  Hook said softly, ‘We now know that you have been dealing drugs, Jason. Dealing for Robin Durkin. You’d have been arrested long ago, if the National Crime Squad hadn’t been more interested in the men making millions out of the trade.’

  Jason lifted his hands, let them fall back helplessly on to his knees. He felt suddenly cold on this broiling day, felt the sweat cooling upon his exhausted body. ‘I’ve been trying to get out.’

  DS Ruth David nodded, acknowledging that the man’s formal, hopeless resistance was broken. ‘You’re lucky there haven’t already been charges for dealing. The best thing you can do now is to be absolutely frank with us. Then we’ll leave it to Chief Superintendent Lambert to consider what to do about your previous lying, about your deliberate obstructing of the police in the course of their duties.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get out. I had a scare two years ago. Nearly got caught outside a pub in Gloucester. It’s only a matter of time before you get caught, when you’re dealing.’

  That tallied with the information they had, which said that Richie had been much more active in the trade two years ago than now. ‘So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you make the break?’

  ‘Durkin. He said he could drop me right in it, without implicating himself. That a word in the right ear would land me in deep trouble. I wasn’t sure whether he meant with the police or the drug barons. They don’t believe in half measures, those people. You end up in the river with a bullet in the back of your head.’

  It was true enough, though she doubted if Ritchie was important enough to warrant a killing. ‘So you’re saying that Robin Durkin had a hold over you.’

  ‘He had a hold over lots of people, I think. He enjoyed having that sort of power.’

  ‘You realize that this gives you an excellent motive for murder,’ Ruth David said.

  Jason nodded dumbly. He couldn’t see any other answer to that. He wanted to deny that he had killed Robin Durkin, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Bert Hook said almost apologetically. ‘In the light of this new knowledge, I have to ask you again the question John Lambert put to you on Tuesday. We know that you left Saturday night’s party at about one a.m. That has been confirmed by others. But did you leave Mrs Holt’s house and go out again in the small hours of Sunday morning to meet with Robin Durkin?’

  He shook his head miserably. ‘No. Lisa will confirm that.’

  ‘Mrs Holt admitted to us at Oldford Police Station this morning that she could not be certain of your movements from about one forty onwards. She said that she had had a lot to drink and fell quickly into a heavy sleep.’

  It was like a blow in the stomach, a confirmation that his world was falling apart. He felt now that Lisa and he had been moving further away from each other all week, without either of them having the courage to put things into words. No doubt Lisa would have warned him that they were on to him, if he had not had his mobile switched off. He said hopelessly, ‘I didn’t go out again. I went to sleep beside Lisa.’

  DS David said quietly, ‘Then no doubt you are not able to tell us whether Mrs Holt left her house again that night.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘Can you be sure of that?’

  Jason’s mind raced suddenly, when for minutes it had seemed clamped. They’d talked to Lisa, obviously. If what they had just said was true, she’d gone in voluntarily to the station to give them information. What on earth had she been saying to them? ‘Of course I can’t be sure of Lisa’s movements, if I was asleep. When you work like this, you don’t wake up easily.’ He lifted his arms and gestured vaguely towards the shining rectangle of the garage base, as if the fierceness of his physical labour could somehow demonstrate his integrity. ‘All I’m saying is that I’m sure in my own mind that Lisa Holt wouldn’t creep out and kill Robin bloody Durkin. Why on earth should she do that?’

  Lisa Holt had given them powerful reasons why she might have done it when she told them of how Durkin had wrecked her marriage and ruined her husband, but they weren’t going into that with this man. Bert Hook said thoughtfully, ‘You must be relieved that you can get on with your life, Jason. Get on with what you called “keeping your nose clean”. That’s another way of saying that you must be very pleased that Robin Durkin is dead.’

  ‘Yes. I—’

  ‘Did you kill him, Jason?’

  ‘No.’ He wanted to enlarge on the monosyllable, to give them the words which wouldn’t come to him to demonstrate his innocence.

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I don’t know that either. There’s no reason why I should, is there? That’s your job, not mine.’ He was proud of his belated flash of spirit.

  DS David smiled at him, her oval face very pretty beneath the dark hair. Somehow that smile dropped Jason’s heart towards his cement-streaked boots. ‘It is indeed our job, Mr Ritchie. And sadly, we shall have to report back to CID that we have not been able to eliminate Jason Ritchie from our enquiries into the murder of Robin Durkin. Good afternoon to you. Please accept our apologies if we have disrupted your legitimate work.’

  She turned back towards the police Mondeo. Bert Hook looked down at the exhausted man sitting on the low garden wall. ‘Make sure you don’t deal again, Jason. Cut yourself off entirely from that trade, and it’s possible that there won’t be any charges against you.’

  Jason was grateful to the burly DS for his concern, when he considered things later. But it was that other and greater charge of murder which preoccupied his thoughts as he drove wearily back to his caravan.

  Carol Smart, well-rounded and attractive, did not look like a killer. But she felt very uncomfortable as the head teacher left her in her office with two senior policemen.

  Lambert introduced the tall, dark-haired man she had not seen before as Detective Inspector Rushton. He seemed to be in his early thirties. He was a handsome man when he smiled, Carol decided. He did not smile very much. In fact, after the initial, automatic little response when they were introduced, Carol could not remember him smiling at all.

  It was Rushton who now said, ‘We need to speak to you rather urgently in connection with new information we now possess.’

  ‘I’m only too willing to help you, of course.’ It was bland and meaningless, but Carol could think of nothing better. She bit back the impulse to embroider it, to tell them that there was nothing of interest that an innocent person like herself could possibly have to tell them.

  Lambert gave her a small, encouraging smile, but she was already conscious of his unswerving attention. He said, ‘We now know a lot more about our murder victim, as you’d expect. Not all of it is very flattering to him.’

  ‘I’d expect that, if you’ve been talking to lots of people.’ Again she had to resist the desire to say much more, to rel
ease her tension with a diatribe against Robin Durkin. ‘I told you about my affair with him when I came into the station on Wednesday, Superintendent. I don’t think that particular liaison was flattering, either to him or to me.’

  ‘It hasn’t gone any further than the CID files. And it won’t, unless it proves to have a bearing on the case.’

  ‘Then what is it that you want to speak to me about?’ An absurd, distracting reservation about ending sentences with prepositions assailed her. Perhaps that was an effect of being interviewed in a school.

  ‘We now know for certain that Mr Durkin was involved in the supply of illegal drugs.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ It didn’t surprise her, because she had known it for years. Carol could see no point in admitting that she knew as much as she did about the murdered man.

  ‘He was also a blackmailer, Mrs Smart.’

  ‘I guessed as much.’

  ‘Were you one of his victims?’

  ‘No. I told you when I spoke to you on Wednesday that he was a naturally secretive man, that he liked knowing about people’s lapses and having a hold over them. But he never tried to get money from me. Perhaps he knew that I had nothing substantial to give to him.’

  ‘Blackmail has different faces, all of them ugly. Let’s accept that Durkin didn’t demand money from you. Did he threaten that he would reveal the details of your affair with him to others?’

  Carol had planned to deny this. Now she suddenly knew that that would not be a good plan with these perceptive interrogators watching her so closely. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to admit directly that Durkin had been threatening her. ‘I wasn’t happy when I found that Robin Durkin was to be a close neighbour.’