Close Call

by J M Gregson

  Lennox looked as if he would like to engage his nemesis in a philosophical discussion about the defects of the law. Then he nodded, and said, ‘That way anarchy lies. That way civilization disappears. You’re right, Chief Superintendent Lambert, of course you are, in general. But the system falls down with men like Durkin. The system isn’t efficient enough to deal with them. He’d have come to grief eventually, no doubt, but a lot of better people than him would have suffered at his hands before the law got to him.’

  ‘People like your only son.’

  ‘He said he’d ruin Andrew. Said he’d be delighted to expose his dealing in drugs at the right time, when he’d graduated from Cambridge and was embarking upon a career. Said it would be the crowning victory in the campaign he’d waged against me since he was at school. I’ve got things he gave to me to show what he could do to us. Photographs of Andy when he was dealing, photocopies of orders my son sent to his supplier for illegal drugs. Cocaine, heroin, LSD, as well as lots of cannabis. Lists with Andrew’s name on them, but nothing to implicate Durkin. He was much higher up the chain by then. Durkin said he’d drop them anonymously into a police station when he thought the time was right.’

  Lambert doubted whether he would ever have done that: there would have been too great a danger of the mud spreading wider and smearing him as well, too great a danger of the action implicating other and more dangerous people in that vicious industry. But everyone said that Durkin had enjoyed threatening people, enjoyed exercising power over their lives and making them suffer. And his feud with this hyperactive, sententious man went back to his days at school, when Ronald Lennox had been the one exercising the power.

  Lambert said, ‘You had better let us have these things. They may be used as mitigating evidence by the lawyers you so despise.’

  Rosemary Lennox spoke unexpectedly from the back of the room. ‘They are no longer available. I have disposed of them. I took them away this morning.’ She spoke in the even monotone of one in a trance.

  Lennox whirled upon her, his thin frame bristling with rage at the interference. ‘Why did you do that? You’ve just heard that they might be produced as evidence in my defence.’

  ‘They were also the evidence that could have convicted you of murder! You kept a drawer full of items which showed that you had a motive to kill the man! I didn’t know you were going to boast about your killing like this, did I, you stupid, stupid man!’ All the frustration of this woman who was normally such a model of quiet control and efficiency came out as her voice rose towards a scream of frustration. She glared her resentment at this pedant of a husband, who had erred so disastrously when he tried to become a man of action.

  Lennox looked at her in astonishment for a moment. Then he turned his back on her very deliberately and said to Lambert, ‘How did you realize that I was the man you wanted?’ He spoke as if their discovery of his crime had merely wounded his vanity in some small matter.

  Lambert wasn’t going to admit how recently things had fallen into place, what a close-run thing it had been. Nor would he point out at this stage that Rosemary Lennox, pillar of the local community, had made herself an accessory after the fact in a murder case. It wouldn’t be his decision as to whether that charge should be pursued; probably, if Lennox pleaded guilty, as everything now indicated he would, there would be no charges brought against his wife.

  Lambert said calmly, ‘Small things, Mr Lennox. Small but significant. The fact that you carefully omitted to mention your own son’s school career, even though he did very well and you had every reason to be very proud of him. The fact that Andrew’s picture was on display in a position of honour here when we first visited you on Tuesday, but had been removed when we came back on Wednesday. That made us feel that your son might be significant in the case: that he should be questioned about his own relationship with Robin Durkin.’

  Ron Lennox nodded, digesting this account, apparently finding it satisfied him. He might have been listening patiently to a bright sixth form student propounding a theory about history. He said, ‘He’s a fine boy, Andrew. A fine young man, I should say now. Since he has been rid of the baleful influence of Rob Durkin, he’s never looked back. He’ll graduate from Cambridge next year. Possibly with a First. And he’ll have a fine career, whatever option he chooses to pursue. I couldn’t let scum like Lennox interfere with that. I don’t expect you to admit it, but I’m sure that as an intelligent man you can see the logic of my actions.’

  For the first time that day, he gave that small, surprising cackle of laughter which they had heard from him on their previous visits. It rang eerily round the room, shocking the detectives, his wife, even the man himself. For a moment, no one knew how to follow this startling sound, and in the silence which followed, the first flash of lightning flared in the darkening sky, the first distant rumble of thunder rolled along the ridge of the invisible Welsh hills to the west.

  Eighty miles away in Birmingham, the hitman Anthony David Watson watched the beginning of the investigation into his gangland killing; it would drag on for months and end in failure. The professional killer would as usual escape arrest, and be free to carry on with his calling.

  In rural Herefordshire, the detectives took the Lennoxes out to the car under an umbrella as the rain fell suddenly and heavily from a pewter sky. As if to call attention to a dramatic scene which was unwitnessed, the oaks between the close and the Wye tossed in a violent gust of wind. The lights were switched on now in the three houses of Gurney Close, even at five o’clock on this July afternoon.

  Only the single bungalow where the most elderly of the new residents had dwelled remained obstinately without light, as the rain pelted harder and the evening stretched into night.