Death Dues

by Evans, Geraldine

  'He's gone up the bookies.'

  'Do you mind if we come in and wait for him? It's important.'

  She let go of the supportive door frame with a defeated air and stood back. She was more hospitable than her husband and offered them tea while they waited.

  Rafferty nodded and smiled his thanks. At least the tea would help the time pass till Les Sterling deigned to put in an appearance.

  It was clear Mrs Sterling was a browbeaten woman with little to say for herself. After she brought the tea in, she sat down on the edge of an armchair and kept darting anxious little glances at them.

  Rafferty took it upon himself to break the ice. 'You make a lovely cup of tea, Mrs Sterling.'

  She gave him a quick, nervous smile, but said nothing.

  'Tell me. Did you know the victim, Mr Harrison at all?'

  ‘Yes, but not very well. Occasionally I’d give him our weekly payments if my husband was out. It was Les who got in touch with his firm to arrange the loan.'

  'Did he consult you about taking out this loan?'

  Her thin face seemed to become thinner. 'No. He never consults me about anything. He always says that if a man can't be boss in his own house it's a poor do. I was horrified when I found the paperwork for the loan. Such a lot of money. How we're to repay it, I don't know.' She looked as if she might cry. 'I wish he hadn't done it. We'd be able to manage on my wage if he didn't drink, smoke and gamble. I'll have to put in for some more overtime if we're ever to clear it.'

  She looked thin as a lath now, thought Rafferty. What would she look like after she spent months’ putting in even more overtime than she must currently be doing? She'd wear away to nothing. But it was unlikely her husband would bestir himself and get a job when his wife made such a doormat of herself.

  Just then, the front door slammed and seconds later, the unkempt figure of Les Sterling appeared in the doorway.

  Immediately he saw them his face turned thunderous and he began to berate his wife. 'What the hell do you think you're doing, you stupid cow, letting coppers in the house when I'm not here?' He strode into the room and stood menacingly in front of his wife, who cowered back in her chair, spilling her tea in her lap and staring up at her husband in fear. 'What have you told them?'

  'I—I haven't told them anything, Les.'

  'You better not have.' He raised his hand threateningly. 'Or—'

  'Why don't you sit down, Mr Sterling, instead of threatening your wife in front of witnesses?'

  Sterling scowled at him. 'Don't you tell me what to do in my own home, copper. I do what I like.'

  'So it would seem. Like having a flaming row with the dead man?'

  Sterling stared stupidly at him for a moment. 'What?'

  'We've a witness who swears they saw you having a stand up row with Jaws Harrison. Are you telling me you didn't?'

  'Yeah. That's exactly what I'm telling you. Bleeding cheek. You come into my home with your lies, frightening my wife and—'

  'It seems to me, Mr Sterling, that the only person frightening your wife is you. Why don't you sit down and calm down?'

  'Cos I don't choose to, that's why.' He marched to the door. 'I want you out of my house.' He yanked the living room door open. 'Now. You come here, making insinuations and—'

  'No insinuations, Mr Sterling. I merely asked you a question as part of a wider murder investigation. You said you didn't have a row with the deceased. Fine. That's all I wanted to ask you. If you say you didn't have a row with Mr Harrison, I have to believe you. For the moment, anyway. Of course, I'll be making further enquiries in the neighbourhood to try to find out if you're telling me the truth.' Rafferty stood up. 'We'll see ourselves out.'

  They heard Sterling lambasting his wife as they shut the front door behind them.

  'Poor bitch,' said Rafferty. 'She must lead a dog's life with him and their two charming sons.'

  Llewellyn nodded. 'And now they have a large debt to exacerbate their problems.'

  'If the woman had any sense, she'd leave him and his large debt to stew, but I don't suppose she will. The years of browbeating and bullying have clearly taken their toll.'

  'We each make our own troubles in this life,' was Llewellyn's philosophical response. 'Do you think Mr Sterling was telling the truth?'

  'No. Do you?'

  Llewellyn shook his head.

  'That being the case, why don't we make a start on questioning his neighbours again? The ones either side of him seem favourite to me.'

  So saying, Rafferty opened the gate of the Sterlings' next door neighbour, walked up the path and knocked on the front door.

  His knock was answered by a woman with a flowery pinny and floury hands.

  'Yes?'

  'Good afternoon. Mrs Palmer, isn't it?'

  'That's right. You're the policemen investigating the murder, aren't you?'

  Rafferty nodded. 'I wonder if we could come in for a few minutes? There's something I'd like you talk to you about.'

  'Yes, of course. Come in. I'll just wash my hands.' She led them into the living room. 'Sit yourselves down. I won't be a moment.'

  She was soon back. 'Now,’ she asked, as she sat down. 'How can I help you?'

  `We've received information that your neighbour, Mr Sterling Senior, had a big argument with the man who's murder we're investigating. I wondered if you'd heard this row?'

  She shook her head. 'I don't think so. When is it supposed to have happened?'

  'The Friday before the murder.'

  'Oh. I remember now. My husband did mention something. I didn't take a lot of notice. Les Sterling's the sort of man who’s always having rows. We must have had half-a-dozen rows with him since we moved in a year ago. Usually about those sons of his. I feel sorry for his wife. Nora seems really cowed. I've had her in here in tears before now.'

  'You said your husband heard Mr Sterling arguing with someone. Are you sure it was the Friday before the murder?'

  'Yes. Because it was our day for fish and chips. We always have fish and chips on a Friday. My husband works shifts and he was on early shift that day so we had a late lunch. But I don't know who Les was arguing with. My husband never said. And I wasn't that interested. Les Sterling could get in an argument with the mirror. And probably punch it when it argued back.'

  'We'd like to speak to your husband. If we return this evening is he likely to be at home?'

  'Yes. We've no plans to go out.'

  They had to leave it there. They thanked her and left.

  'Let's try the neighbours on the other side,' Rafferty said. 'We might strike even more lucky.'

  But the neighbours on the Sterlings' other side were unable to help. Neither of them had been in on the Friday before the murder so had heard nothing.

  'Oh, well,' said Rafferty as they got in the car to drive back to the station. 'One out of two isn’t bad. We'll just have to bear our souls in patience and wait till this evening.'

  Les Sterling was standing in his doorway, watching them. Probably wanted to make sure they left, was Rafferty’s thought. Sterlings’ sullen face wore a hard-done-by expression that would have been funny if it wasn't for the fact that the way he went inside and slammed the door behind him boded ill for his unfortunate wife.

  When they returned to Primrose Avenue that evening to speak to Mr Palmer, they were waylaid at the gate by a hangdog-looking Les Sterling. He must have been looking out for them because they’d barely climbed from the car before he rushed out of his front door.

  'You'd better come in,’ he muttered. ‘I don't want that bastard, Palmer, next door badmouthing me before I have a chance to put my side of the story.'

  Rafferty was tempted to remark that he’d had every opportunity to unburden himself. But he said nothing in case the suddenly confiding Sterling changed his mind. It was always good to get evidence from the horse’s mouth rather than just a possibly vindictive neighbour.

  Sterling led the way into his living room. He even invited them to sit down.

/>   There was no sign of Mrs Sterling or his sons. Had they been banished so Les could unburden himself in private?

  'The thing is,' Sterling began. 'I did have a few words with Jaws Harrison. The bastard had been trying to cheat me, hadn't he?'

  'Cheat you?' Rafferty repeated. 'In what way?'

  'He took the money I paid off the loan, but he didn't enter the payments. I only found out when I contacted the office and asked for an up-to-date statement.'

  'I see. And you had it out with Mr Harrison?'

  'Too right, I did. It's hard enough making the payments without being cheated out of those you do make. Bastard's lucky I didn't knock him into next week.'

  'Did he admit it?'

  'Didn't have to. I snatched the payments record book off him and shoved it under his nose. I knew I'd made those payments and so did he.'

  ‘Why didn’t you make sure he entered the payment in his book?’

  ‘I would have done. I’m not stupid. Not like the—‘ He broke off. ‘It was the wife who generally paid him. I’ve got better things to do with my time than wait in for the tally-man.’

  'Did you complain to the office?'

  'Course I bloody complained. What do you take me for? I told that Forbes his man was a thief. He tried to make out I was a liar. I'd no proof, of course, as I paid Harrison in cash from my betting winnings. It was my word and my wife’s word against his, wasn't it? Bastard. Even so, I tell you I was surprised when my boys told me they saw him again the next Friday, bold as brass. He never came here; must have been murdered before he finished across the way. He should have been sacked for what he did to me and so I told his boss. But people like that, they're all crooks, robbing innocent folk. I told Forbes, I said, I won't be taking another loan out with your lot. Not after this. He said he'd look into it, but he can't have done, can he? Not when Jaws turned up again the next week, large as life.'

  It was clear that Les Sterling was a man with a grievance, though whether it was a justified one or just Sterling attempting and failing to try it on in order to get out of making a few payments, was debatable.

  One thing though, as Rafferty told Llewellyn once they'd finally escaped Sterling and his hard-done-by tale, it gave Forbes the strong reason for murder that they'd been lacking before. He wouldn’t have wanted it to become general knowledge that Harrison had been cheating him. Certainly not without swift retribution following the theft. His hard man reputation would have made retribution obligatory.

  Of course, if the tale of Harrison’s thieving was true, it also gave the aggressive Les Sterling good reason to want to do the thief serious damage.

  'Though I can more easily imagine Sterling punching him in the face at the time of the row than creeping up behind him an entire week later and bashing him on the head. Not a man to defer his pleasures, our Leslie.'

  'Mmm. Doesn't quite seem Forbes's style, either. It doesn’t fit his psychological profile. Surely his pride would demand something rather more dramatic as punishment for his erring collector than a few biffs on the head?'

  'Psychological bollocks! Don't say that!' Rafferty protested, ignoring his own psychological conclusions about Sterling. 'We get a new piece of evidence that points the finger at two of our favourite suspects and here we are doing our damnedest to exonerate them both. Let's not go there. One thing, anyway, if Sterling killed him it would explain the theft of Harrison's wallet and collection money. Come on, let's get this meeting with Mr Palmer over and then we'll call it a day. It's been a long one.’

  Their meeting with Mr Palmer didn't take above five minutes. He told them pretty much what Les Sterling had told them, thereby confirming that Sterling hadn’t tried to bamboozle Forbes into believing he’d been cheated, but had been telling the truth about the reason for the row. Palmer’s evidence also confirmed that Sterling had a very good reason to want to harm Harrison.

  The next day, Rafferty, feeling surprisingly full of renewed vigour, decided to widen other lines of inquiry. For, as he told Llewellyn, there were a couple of areas they had neglected to look into very deeply: one the possibility of a turf war having broken out, with both Jaws Harrison and Izzy Barber, its victims, along with the other two men who had been the earlier victims of assault. The other thing he wanted to dig deeper into was the possibility that the two young women involved in the case, Samantha Dicker and Josie McBride, might not be as innocent as they claimed.

  He had mainly dismissed them as suspects as he hadn't seen the murder as a woman's crime; the likelihood of either young woman being guilt of an attack on the brick outhouse that had been Jaws Harrison had seemed unlikely in the extreme. But in a murder investigation even the extremes of unlikelihood must be checked out. To this end, he set Gerry Hanks to delving into the young women's pasts.

  At first, Hanks didn't discover anything, but as the young detective dug deeper and questioned the moneylenders in the area, he heard a curious tale: that Josie McBride wasn't quite the innocent young bride-to-be they had thought her to be.

  He reported back to Rafferty that she had taken out a loan several years earlier with a rival firm to Forbes and had been accused of assaulting the collector when he had called for her latest instalment. No charges had been brought and it had gone no further, so the assault couldn't have been a serious one. Even so, it revealed more of Josie McBride's character than had previously been suspected.

  'Not so butter wouldn't melt,' Rafferty commented, ‘as a smoke-detector setter-offer.’ He glanced at Llewellyn. ‘Maybe she took exception to Forbes's collector, too?’ Rafferty turned back to Hanks. ‘Did you find out why she assaulted the earlier collector?’

  Hanks nodded. 'It seems he made improper suggestions to her.'

  'Improper suggestions? How very old-fashioned. I suppose you mean he said that if she slept with him he'd knock a chunk off the debt.'

  'That’s about the size of it, Sir,’ Hanks confirmed.

  'Who'd have thought such things would go on in this day and age when young women seem to drop their drawers obligingly on the slightest acquaintance. Did you question Miss McBride about the incident?'

  'Yes. She said all she did was slap the man across the face. It didn't hurt him. She said he laughed at her and went away still chuckling.'

  'And who was this collector?'

  'None other than Izzy Barber. He was working for Dean Everitt, another moneylender, at the time.'

  'Well, well. What a small world we move in, to be sure. He seems to suffer particularly badly from the occupational hazard of being assaulted – hardly efficient when he and his ilk are meant to dole out the punishment.’

  Rafferty thanked Hanks, dismissed him and turned back to Llewellyn. ‘I shouldn't wonder if cousin Nigel doesn't regard Izzy Barber as surplus to requirements, with hospitalization as a sackable offence. Thoroughly deserved, I'm sure.' He broke off, then asked, 'Any news on the turf war aspect?'

  'Not as yet. But I instructed the team to put further feelers out. Hopefully, if there's anything in it, we'll hear shortly.'

  Rafferty nodded. 'Let's have another word with Izzy Barber.'

  They got over to the hospital. Barber was looking marginally better but clearly feeling a lot more sorry for himself and consequently more inclined to let something slip. He went as far as to admit that there had been bad feeling between Nigel Blythe's collectors and those of Malcolm Forbes.

  'There was a certain resentment between the two teams,' he said. 'An antagonism. But it was an antagonism of words only,' he added at the spark of interest in Rafferty's eye. 'Not of action.' He was insistent on this last.

  Given Jaws' death and Barber's assault and hospitalization, Rafferty wasn't sure he believed him. He thought it possible that both investigations — the murder and the muggings, might, after all, have been the result of this antagonism, with Jake Sterling’s little band guilty of the muggings under instruction from Forbes.

  More determined now to discover the truth, he set the team to questioning those who frequented
the local pubs that Izzy Barber, his colleagues and those of Jaws Harrison favoured. Gradually, there seeped back to him the news that Barber and his colleagues hadn't denied an involvement in Jaws' death.

  It might, of course, merely be bravado on their part. A message sent out to the opposition that they were to be treated with respect.

  Rafferty wasn't sure. It was still possible that Jake Sterling and his three friends had been responsible for Jaws Harrison's murder as well as the muggings. The one didn’t preclude the other. Nor did it take away the possibility that they had been put up to both attacks by Forbes himself; the muggings for the purposes of intimidation of the competition and the murder for reasons of punishment.

  The trouble was that he still had no proof. He had proof of precious little apart from Tony Moran's confessions about the muggings and all these investigations into feuds and vendettas were taking up valuable time and man hours that should have been devoted to the core of the investigation.

  It was a continuing frustration that seemed to have no end. He was weary of it.

  Interrupted by the news about Les Sterling's argument with Jaws Harrison, Rafferty's previous plans had been rather put out of kilter. But now he resurrected them.

  Once they were in the car and on the way, Rafferty said, ‘I think we’ll question Mrs Emily Parker first. As she’s the street’s nose for gossip we might get more out of her than the rest.’

  As it turned out, Mrs Parker was unable to help them. ‘Visitors?’ she asked. ‘Visitors from Mr Forbes?’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve not seen anyone. No one’s been round to ask me questions, though I know they questioned some of the neighbours. Maybe they missed me? I was round my daughter’s for several hours yesterday.’

  Having drawn a blank, they took their leave and tried Josie McBride. She admitted that she’d had a visit from a couple of men.

  ‘What did they say?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘Very little. They seemed pretty cagey.’

  ‘Were they threatening at all?’

  ‘No. They simply asked me if I’d seen anything the day of the murder. I told them the same that I told you – that I’d seen and heard nothing and they went away.’