Death Dues

by Evans, Geraldine

  Eric Lewis spluttered incoherently for a few seconds, his spluttering interspersed with the noise of rain lashing the car windows. He rubbed his bald head, then he blurted out, ‘All right. I admit it. I did take a loan out with Forbes. Only a small one, mind. Five hundred quid and I’ve nearly finished paying it off. But then so did other people in the street and most of them were in hock for much more than me, so don’t go pointing the finger in my direction when you look for your killer. It’ll be pointed in the wrong place.’

  ‘Oh? And what direction should it be pointed?’

  But Lewis wasn’t to be drawn. He clammed up at the question. All he said was, ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? All I know is that it wasn’t me who killed him.’

  ‘OK, Mr Lewis, That’ll be all for now. But stay in the car. We’ll need a formal statement. I’ll get one of my officers to drive you to the police station so you can give it.’

  Eric Lewis looked alarmed at this. ‘Why do I have to go to the police station to give a statement? I’ve just told you what happened, haven’t I? All I did was find the body. I can’t say any more than that. I can’t see the point in a lot of rigmarole over that.’

  Put like that, it did seem much ado about nothing. But, as he told Mr Lewis, they had procedures that had to be followed and if he was lying, it was as well to get it on record with a signature attached. ‘It won’t take long. One of my officers will drive you back home afterwards.’

  Lewis seemed to think it was an invitation that was open to refusal because he continued to prevaricate. ‘Well, I don’t know. The wife won’t like it. Wanted me to start the decorating today.’

  Seeing as the day had been far advanced by the time Mr Lewis found the body, he hadn’t made a cracking beginning on the painting he was now so keen on. ‘Never mind,’ Rafferty said. ‘You can get an early start in the morning, can’t you?’

  ‘Suppose so. Though she still won’t like it.’

  Rafferty looked out of the rain-lashed windscreen, steeled himself, and got out of the car, leaving Eric Lewis still peddling excuses. He hunched his shoulders against excuses and vile weather, both, called over one of the uniforms and told him to drive Lewis to the station and find someone to take his statement. He trudged back towards the alley, fighting the strengthening wind all the way and trying and failing to avoid the large puddles that had grown larger while he had been speaking to Eric Lewis and which made the ends of his trousers uncomfortably soggy for the second time that day.

  He met Llewellyn coming the other way; Llewellyn, of course, had the wind in his face, and his umbrella was still holding its own against the elements that had turned his inside out. His trousers were also, somehow, free of puddle damage. ‘Got anything?’ he asked tersely as he swallowed his irritation at his sergeant’s ability to stay looking smart whatever the weather or other people threw at him.

  ‘The youths claim they saw nothing. What about you? How have you got on?’

  Rafferty pushed a hand through his dripping hair and scowled. ‘I’ve got precious little. Though Mr Lewis, the man who I was just talking to and who admits to finding the body and ringing it in, did tell me those lads were hanging about when he found the body. You got their details?’

  Llewellyn bridled slightly at this. ‘Of course.’ He patted his pocket. ‘I also checked their claimed identities with a couple of the neighbours. Three of the youths supplied false names for reasons they preferred not to go into when I challenged them.’

  ‘Force of habit, probably. So which of them tried to be clever dicks?’

  ‘Jake Sterling, Des Arnott and Tony Moran.’

  ‘They the cocky looking trio in the leather jackets?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘OK. What say we haul them all in for questioning? Maybe their little friend lacking the cool leather will be more chatty without the cocksure threesome within earshot.’

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Fashion crime?’ Rafferty sighed. This was Llewellyn at his most pedantic. ‘Try a touch of lateral thinking, Dafyd.’ Then, with the recollection that the logical Llewellyn was still having trouble thinking in his own haphazard manner, he said, ‘Obstructing the police sounds favourite to me. Maybe also threatening behaviour seeing as Mr Lewis said they made throat-slitting gestures at him. Should be worth a few hours’ of their time. How’s the house-to-house going?’

  ‘Most of the street residents have given preliminary statements, though not everyone was at home so they’ll have to be followed up later. They're still searching the alley. We’re also questioning the residents of the houses that form a T-junction with Primrose Avenue. They might have seen something.’

  ‘Anyone admitted to seeing anything? Anything at all?’

  Llewellyn shook his head. ‘Though, as I said, we have yet to question everyone.’ His hair was still dry, its style still immaculate which made Rafferty feel even more irritated. After all, it had been Llewellyn who had tempted the fates.

  Rafferty, already in an ill-humour and determined to think the worst, ignored Llewellyn’s last comment. ‘So we’ve got the proverbial see no evil and hear no evil. Great. I suppose its inevitable given the identity of the victim. All the people who owed money to Jaws Harrison’s boss will be glad to see the end of him and his heavy-handed tactics. Maybe Forbes’ next collector will be full of the milk of human kindness. Not.’

  ‘Most of the residents wouldn’t even admit to knowing Mr Harrison,’ Llewellyn said, raising his soft voice against the howling wind. ‘Stupid really as we shall shortly have records of the debtors in the street from Mr Forbes.’

  ‘Mmm. Instinctive reaction I suppose. Speak first, in denial, and think about what you’ve said afterwards. No one wants to be connected to murder. Have you sent someone to get the debtor list from Forbes’ office?’

  ‘I was just about to.’

  ‘Send Lizzie Green. Maybe her particular feminine touch will ease things along. Got a nice way with her has Lizzie.’ Plump in all the right places, Lizzie Green exuded the great aunt’s perfume of Lily of the Valley talcum power partnered by a Bardotesque pout. It was a killing combination that warmed Rafferty even in the face of the stinging rain.

  ‘Anything else you’d like me to organise?’

  ‘Yeah. Get Lizzie to find out the victim’s address and his next of kin while she’s at Forbes’s office. We’ll need to go along once we’re finished here and break the news. Oh and give Dally a bell. See what’s keeping him. I’m keen to learn as quickly as possible if our victim did or didn’t die in that alley. It would be good to reduce the potential suspects early in the game.’

  Llewellyn walked off clutching his mobile and his umbrella, still looking as pristine as at his arrival, while Rafferty, by now so wet through that he felt he could get no wetter, grew resigned, planted his feet firmly as anchorage against the wind and did some more studying of the location.

  The cul-de-sac was made up of fourteen terraced houses, seven on each side of the road with parking on the street. Each house had a tiny front garden separating it from the road. Two or three were well-kept, with pots of now battered and mostly petal-less spring bulbs brightening them, but the majority housed rusty bikes and weeds. The houses on the left backed on to the alley where the dead man had been found. Had he died there? Rafferty wondered again. Or had he been taken there after being killed elsewhere? And how come no one saw anything? Although it was now well into the evening, it was still light and although the street, owing to its dead end nature, would have lacked through traffic, there were still kids about, it being the Easter holidays and women going to and from the local parade of shops.

  And what of the youths who claimed to have seen nothing? True, the dead man had been found between numbers eleven and thirteen – unlucky for some – around the bend in the alley and out of their line of vision, but they must know roughly what time he had arrived in the street.

  Was this killing merely an escalation in the violence of the previous muggings or was
it something more? A planned and deliberately executed killing? Could it be that a turf war had broken out among the local loan sharks? But if that was the case, Rafferty argued to himself, surely the murder would have been much more showy and designed to serve as a warning. Whoever did it, given the number and ferocity of the blows, had certainly been determined to remove Jaws Harrison from this world.

  Chapter Three

  Rafferty caught up with two of the uniformed officers on house-to-house duties. ‘I’ll want a list of everyone in the street asap. Especially those in the odd house numbers one to thirteen. They had the best access to the alley. How many people are we talking about on that side of the street?’

  ‘Adults and mid-teens, it’s thirteen, sir,’ replied Constable Claire Allen, the newest member of the team, after she had done a swift tally up.

  There was that number again, thought Rafferty, his superstitious side giving him goose bumps. He hoped it wasn’t going to turn out to be as unlucky for him as it had been for Jaws Harrison.

  ‘How many of the thirteen look possibles?’

  ‘Ten, sir. One of the thirteen is a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy and two are elderly and look rather frail.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive. If you’ve desperate enough you’ll find reserves of strength from somewhere. I reckon some of these people must have been beyond desperate if they owed Malcolm Forbes money they were unable to pay and with the dead man making threats.’

  Rafferty sent the pair on their way as he spotted Sam Dally’s car draw up beyond the cordon. He hurried to speak to him. According to Dally, when he’d cursed at the weather, the rain making his sparse hair look even thinner, and had finally wriggled his rotund body into his protective gear and checked out the body, told Rafferty that the hypostasis evidence on the body pointed to the man having died where he was found.

  ‘Right-handed assailant, as the majority of the blows are to that side of the skull. I’d say it was likely to be a hammer that did it. Certainly something with metal rather than wood at the end as I can’t see any splinters in the wounds, though I will, of course, do a thorough check during the post mortem. I suppose you also want a time of death?’

  ‘If you can.’

  ‘Certainly within the last three, three and a half hours, erring more towards two to two and a half I would think. Will that do you?’

  ‘It’ll do me very nicely, Sam. Much obliged.’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ His rain-spattered half-moon glasses glinted as the sun came out for a few seconds, saw the weather and went back to its cloudy bed. ‘And don’t order your underlings to chase me up in future. You know how I hate to be rushed.’

  Rafferty almost grinned as he thought of Llewellyn’s likely reaction to this description. ‘Sorry and all that, Sam.’ Dally by name and dally by nature, that was Sam. Not that he didn’t do a thorough job, which was why he put up with the Scotsman’s irascibility.

  ‘Got an ID yet?’

  ‘We believe so. A collector for a local loan shark named Malcolm Forbes. So we’ve got a motive likely to apply to a number of our street residents.’

  ‘Och. There’ll not be too many loose tongues, then. Not talking to the police, anyway. Though they’ll doubtless be happy to curry favour with your man Forbes if they know anything. Likely there’ll be some willing to tell tall tales to get in well with him. Could be an opportunity for one or two to settle old scores.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. An early post mortem would be good, Sam.’

  ‘Would it, now? Always in a rush, Rafferty, that’s your trouble. You’ve got enough to be going on with, I’d say. Leave the timing of the post mortem to them as knows what else is awaiting attention. I’ll get back to you.’ With that, Dally picked up his bag of tricks and fought his rotund way back down the alley.

  Now he had a likely weapon, Rafferty set some of the team to checking the sheds and outhouses for missing hammers and other metal headed tools. The search of the alley had turned up nothing but the usual rubbish of discarded cigarette and crisp packets and condoms; the quantity of the latter indicated that this was some sort of neighbourhood Lovers’ Lane.

  After having a quick word with Adrian Appleby, head of the SOCO team, Rafferty, relieved to get out of the reach of the weather again, picked up a loitering Llewellyn and drove back to the station. On the way, they discussed the case.

  'I'm worried this might be something more than a routine mugging gone wrong,' Rafferty confided as he overtook a slow-moving milk cart. He noticed Llewellyn – always a nervous passenger when Rafferty was behind the wheel – clutch the edge of his seat with white-knuckled hands as the speedometer touched fifty-five. He eased back on the accelerator as he passed the milk float and said, 'You can let the seat go now. I was only doing fifty odd.'

  'In a thirty mile limited,' Llewellyn pointed out. 'That's breaking the law. And the wet roads won't help with braking distances.'

  Rafferty's lips pursed at this, but he said nothing further about it. 'As I said, this case has all the hallmarks of a turf war.'

  'Possibly,' said Llewellyn, his manner as dampening as the weather. 'But we ought to wait until we've got more evidence before we come to any conclusions.'

  'You can wait if you like. Me, I think we ought to consider every angle sharpish. If this does turn out to be a turf war we could face riots in the streets. Superintendent Bradley’ll be able to get his plump cheeks and shiny buttons on the telly again. He’ll like that. How about you? Fancy being a media celebrity?’

  Llewellyn’s shudder was answer enough.

  Silence fell, a silence that lasted until they reached the police station and Rafferty executed what he considered a nifty piece of parking. Which brought a protest from Llewellyn, followed by a strained atmosphere. To escape it, Rafferty made a speedy exit from the car, leaving Llewellyn and the strained atmosphere trailing.

  Rafferty popped into the gents. His hair was dripping annoyingly down the back of his neck and his wet trouser ends flapped around his ankles with each step. He got the worst of the wet off under the hand dryer, propped up on one of the sinks to do his trousers.

  Dried off, he returned to his office to find Llewellyn busily engaged on the phone. Back at his desk, it wasn’t long before Rafferty was in possession of the list he had requested of adults and juveniles living in the houses on the oddly numbered side of the street. As Claire Allen had said, there were thirteen all told, including the pregnant single mother Tracey Stubbs, who lived at number nine and the two pensioners, Mrs Emily Parker and Mr Jim Jenkins, both of whom lived alone and whose houses were numbered thirteen and eleven respectively.

  Of the thirteen, Billy Jones, the younger son of the Joneses at number five, claimed to have been at work at the canning factory that backed onto both Primrose Avenue and the alley; another, Dennis Jones, the elder son, claimed to have been at the Job Centre on Elmhurst’s High Street from two-fifteen to three-thirty, and a third, Anthony Clifford of number three, said he had been putting up shelves at his soon to be mother-in-law’s two streets away prior to when the body was found.

  That still left ten of the residents who had the greatest opportunity to murder Harrison. Some of these had been with family members the whole time, so unless there had been collusion, their potential as suspects was lessened though not completely out of the park.

  Llewellyn came off the phone and Rafferty shared his conclusions. ‘A lot depends on what we manage to get out of those youths. If Sam Dally’s time of death is as accurate as it usually is, most will be in the clear. Providing, that is, their stories check out.

  ‘That leaves a bunch of students at number seven who all seemed to be out, Mr and Mrs Jones who are both unemployed and live at number five along with their two sons and the lodger Peter Allbright, Anthony Clifford’s live in partner Josie McBride at number three, Samantha Dicker, the lodger at number one, the pregnant Tracey Stubbs, plus the two pensioners. The family at number one, it has finally been d
iscovered are currently on holiday in Spain, lucky buggers, though their lodger, Samantha Dicker said she was home at the estimated time of Harrison’s murder.’

  The residents on the other side of the street whose back gardens adjoined a separate alley had also been questioned, but as they didn’t have immediate, discreet access to the murder scene, as suspects they featured lower down the list.

  ‘Of immediate interest, of course, are those who might have had a motive for murder.’ He grinned at Llewellyn and in an attempt to jolly him out of his attack of the sullens, said, ‘They don’t call me a detective for nothing.’

  ‘One would have thought you could then detect the 30 mph speed limit sign.’

  ‘Oh, get over yourself, man. There are worse crimes than going a little over the limit. As we should know.’

  He ignored Llewellyn’s muttered, ‘Like going twenty-five miles over the limit, for instance,’ and grabbed his phone to ring Lizzie Green on her mobile.

  ‘Lizzie. How are you doing on getting that list of Forbes’s debtors in Primrose Avenue?’

  ‘I’ve got it, Sir, as well as the details of the dead man’s next of kin. He was living with a woman called Annie Pulman in a flat off the High Street.’ She rattled off the address. ‘I’m on my way back to the nick.’

  ‘Good man. Come straight to my office. If we can do some mixing and matching on opportunity and motive, we might get somewhere sooner than expected.’

  Rafferty replaced the receiver and sat back, contemplating the ceiling. He’d given up smoking, but would give anything for a drag or two right now. But he refused to give into the craving. Instead, he would have to rely on that other stalwart crutch for cases of emergency. He needed tea, hot and sweet. It helped him to think. Or so he believed. It would, anyway, help him get through the next few hours. He walked to the office door and opened it, collaring Timothy Smales who was passing by. ‘Finished with Eric Lewis and his statement?’