Killer Cases: A Lambert and Hook Detective Omnibus

by J M Gregson

  ‘No form?’

  ‘Not apart from the early LSD.’

  ‘Any violence?’

  ‘None at all that we’ve been able to find.’ Yet this death, with its subtle, quiet suffocation, disguised as an EXIT suicide, was in a way non-violent. No bludgeoning with a blunt instrument, no blowing a man’s head away. Just a quiet, ruthless dispatch into eternity. Was he rationalizing because of his dislike of Hapgood?

  ‘Sexual inclinations?’

  ‘Women. Consistently. None of them for very long. Whether he prefers it that way, or whether they tire of him, is not very clear. Perhaps both.’

  Simon Hapgood was not so uncommon a type in police experience, after all. With an education and obvious good looks, they lived on their wits in their twenties. If successful, they became with experience and discretion successful businessmen in their thirties, then pillars of a society in which wealth was the easiest measure. If they failed, they often declined into seedy confidence-tricksters in middle age, preying on the gullible young housewives and elderly widows who lived in the unreal world of cheap romances.

  John Lambert had a sudden fantasy which involved the active body of the fair-haired, blue-eyed Mr Hapgood. Perhaps he had settled to life at Freeman Estates, even if he occasionally pushed its possibilities to a point only just within the law. But he surely did not live a life of monastic seclusion in that aseptic lounge of his. Lambert wished he had seen the décor of the bedroom. Before the thought could induce too much excitement in a middle-aged superintendent, he turned briskly to Hook, that bromide among sergeants.

  ‘Did you check his story with the pub, Bert?’

  ‘I did better than that. I found witnesses.’ Hook was human enough to change to a more brisk delivery in response to Rushton’s efforts. ‘The landlord at the Stonemasons’ Arms in Cornbrook confirms he was there that Wednesday night. They were quite busy and he can’t be sure about times. He remembers Hapgood ordering a round of drinks at what he thinks was about nine-thirty, because Hapgood was quite boisterous about it. He had the impression he’d been there for some time, but he couldn’t be sure of that. But Hapgood gave us the names of three people who’d been with him, and I’ve spoken to two of them. They confirm his presence, but they can’t be precise about the time we know is important.’

  He flicked the leaves of his notebook and found the names he wanted with unaccustomed celerity. ‘Julian Armitage remembers Hapgood ordering that round of drinks as soon as he joined their little group. He gave them the impression he’d already been in the pub for some time with other people before coming over to them, but when I pressed him for names he hadn’t actually seen anyone: it’s possible the idea is no more than a notion planted by Hapgood. Hazel Smythe-Walker is even less use: she joined the group at about nine forty-five, and can vouch for the fact that Hapgood stayed with them until closing time, but she obviously can’t know about the time of his arrival. She thought Hapgood had had a few and been there for quite some time, but that again might be no more than an impression he worked to create. Incidentally, Hapgood might have been working on his alibi since the murder. He’s been back to the pub three times in the last week, each time from eight o’clock onwards.’

  Lambert, who now thought he knew where Hapgood had been for at least some part of that Wednesday night, had not yet an iota of proof. He leaned forward to Rushton, all differences forgotten in the excitement of a new idea. ‘How many of the staff of Freeman Estates were involved with Lydon Hall?’

  Rushton was shrewd enough to pick up his chief’s train of thought quickly; his own agitation rose as he replied. ‘Only Stanley Freeman, I think. He handled the whole thing himself, even the measuring for the brochure. Robson and Hapgood seemed quite put out, but thought they’d get their chance at a sale if it didn’t go immediately.’

  ‘So as far as we know, only Freeman ever visited the place officially. It has a gravel drive to the front and both sides. Has anyone checked the tyres of our suspects for traces of gravel?’

  Rushton shook his head dumbly, wondering how to frame his excuse. But Lambert was too excited to pause now. ‘Damn! My fault entirely. The old gardener told us the first day we were up there that Freeman had done all the measuring of house and garden himself. I just assumed with a property of that size and importance that most of them would have been up there at some time.’

  ‘I think we all did,’ said Rushton miserably. He was only too conscious that they had cast aside one of the few bonuses offered to them in a difficult case. He could think of only one fact to offer, and that a negative one. ‘I think Denise Freeman went up there with her husband. She was interested in seeing the Hall and its furnishings, and Freeman couldn’t shut her out as he did his employees.’

  Lambert said, ‘Check the tyres of the other four now. If they have good tyres – and as they’re all company cars they probably have – there might even be traces of gravel after eight days. Get a sample of Lydon Hall gravel to Forensic right away and tell the lab boys to test the tyre samples against it; top priority. Check Hapgood’s tyres particularly carefully: it’s a blue Sierra. Possibly the car seen by the Harbens, but we need more proof than they can offer us.’

  ‘How openly?’ Rushton was anxious for the relief afforded by action, but cautious still, as appropriate for a man steadily on the way up.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The staff of Freeman Estates park their cars in the public car park behind their office. If they see uniformed men checking tyre-treads, I don’t mind stirring things up a bit. Pity we can’t observe their reactions; Hapgood’s in particular.’

  Rushton made a full and careful note: if there were subsequent questions about irregularities in procedure, it would be as well to make it clear they were on the Superintendent’s initiative. He picked up a phone and set his detective-constables to work, while his chief brooded darkly about missed opportunities. Then Rushton cleared his throat, received Larnbert’s affirmative nod, and moved to his next typewritten sheet.

  ‘Jane Davidson,’ he announced.

  ‘We haven’t even seen her yet. Anything for us to follow up?’ In his own mind, Lambert considered her the least likely of their suspects. As yet, they had found no obvious motive for the receptionist at Freeman Estates to kill her employer. Both Denise Freeman and Emily Godson had noticed something strange in her relationship with Freeman, but it might have been no more than wishful thinking and a little spite. How much was his own view swayed by her sex and her youth? He remembered Christine’s assertion that there was a good girl lurking beneath a recalcitrant exterior. But experience should have taught him by now to dismiss no one as a possibility until he had built up a careful factual picture. He was anxious to reduce the field: perhaps too anxious.

  Rushton said, ‘She claims she was at home with her mother on the night of the murder. Not the kind of alibi I like. I saw the mother myself. She bears out everything her daughter says and probably it’s fair enough. But there’s something odd about both of them; I felt things were being held back. What bits we’ve been able to find support her story. The neighbour is a spinster who sees most of the comings and goings by day.’

  ‘By day?’

  ‘Until her television goes on. Which it does at about seven o’clock on most nights. She saw young Jane come in about six. She didn’t see her go out, but I doubt if she’d have noticed once she was glued to Coronation Street.’ It was true enough: people heard rather than saw the movements of their neighbours at nights and once the ubiquitous chatter of television and radio took over, little else was heard, a fact of great assistance to the criminal fraternity.

  ‘There is one interesting thing. It was Jane Davidson who took the phone message which put the viewing time for the Harbens back from eight-thirty to nine. She says it was a female voice she did not recognize – presumably Mrs Harben, since the change was genuine.’

  ‘But I assume she told Stanley Freeman?’ said Lambert, trying to work through the implications.

  ‘He
wasn’t in the office.’

  ‘Car phone?’

  ‘No. Stanley Freeman didn’t think it was worthwhile in a small local business. I suspect he didn’t have one because he didn’t want to be contacted when he was away from the office.’ They paused for a moment, thinking of the sad figure of Margot Jones in Gloucester; she scarcely seemed to warrant any title as glamorous as mistress. ‘Jane Davidson left a message on Freeman’s Ansafone at home. It was cleared before we got there. Denise Freeman said she didn’t run it until the next day and cleared it then. It means she could have known the night before, of course.’

  There was silence in the Murder Room while they weighed the possibilities. Anyone who knew the viewing had been postponed would have had half an hour to meet the unsuspecting Freeman, perhaps ply him with whisky to supplement the hip flask they had found in his car, complete the murder. Lambert wondered if the others felt the frisson of excitement he experienced now and had known before at key moments in investigations.

  ‘Who else knew?’

  ‘Jane thinks no one at Freeman Estates. Robson and Hapgood were both out with clients at the time of the phone call. That’s genuine enough: the viewings are booked down and we’ve checked them. Emily Godson was in the office but not around when Jane took the phone call – either making tea in the kitchen or out at the washroom. I hardly think a conspiracy between those two is likely: they’re like chalk and cheese.’

  ‘Jane knew herself, of course,’ said Lambert. ‘So far, she’s the only one who we know for certain had the knowledge and could have used it. Did she take any other steps to try to inform Stanley Freeman of the changed time?’

  ‘She left a note of the change on Freeman’s desk. As she says, she left messages in two places and couldn’t have done much more. At the time it seemed that the worst that could happen would be that if Freeman didn’t get the message he’d have to kick his heels and wait at Lydon Hall.’

  ‘Do we have the note?’

  Rushton shook his head. He was glad to be questioned in such detail; as in the case of Simon Hapgood, his thoroughness was being revealed.

  ‘No. George Robson says it wasn’t there when he cleared Freeman’s desk next day. We checked the waste-paper baskets and the dustbin outside. Nothing.’

  Lambert shut his eyes and thought hard. Three possibilities: first, Jane Davidson had not in fact left any note; second, Freeman had found it but still gone to Lydon Hall at around the original time, perhaps to an assignation with his killer; third, it had been removed by some person anxious to conceal the change from the murder victim. It could have course have been placed by Jane Davidson herself but removed after she had checked that Freeman had not been in to see it. According to her story, she was the one person who knew for certain of the changed time. Except that… He stopped that train of thought before it got still more convoluted.

  He thought of Jane Davidson at the funeral, standing stiff and motionless in her high-heeled shoes and high-necked black dress, red nails bright against the shiny black handbag. She had looked young and vulnerable, in need of a lead in graveside behaviour. But there had been more satisfaction than grief as she looked down at the coffin in its final pit.

  ‘Did Jane Davidson strike you as a murderer?’ And does that question sound as banal to you as it does to me, he thought, as soon as he had framed it.

  Apparently not, for Rushton was frowning his way to a considered reply. ‘Not immediately,’ he said eventually. ‘But she’s a hard young miss. A little older than she looks – twenty-four, I think. No father, used to looking out for herself. We didn’t turn up any motive, but both she and her mother seemed scared. As I told you, we felt they were hiding something, but we couldn’t find out what. It’s possible they’d agreed the story about her alibi, but we couldn’t shake them on it. Simple enough tale, of course. Jane washed her hair, Mrs Davidson made a cake, they both watched telly. Not much to trip them up there.’

  True enough, and by now they would be well rehearsed, if indeed they were lying. Rushton’s more objective investigations now supported Emily Godson’s view that Jane was hiding something about her relationship with Freeman. Lambert made a mental note to explore this when they saw young Miss Davidson.

  Suddenly, the phone shrilled at the far end of the room. It had done so twice before during their conference, yet this time DC Spencer felt all their eyes upon him as he answered.

  ‘Yes. Yes… It could be… Is he with you now? Wait a minute, the Superintendent is here in the murder room now.’ Finding Lambert at his side, he handed the phone to him. ‘It’s PC Standing from a patrol car, sir.’

  The uniformed PC at the other end of the line was suddenly nervous at this unexpected link with top brass. ‘It may be nothing at all, sir. I just thought we should ring in to the Murder Room.’

  ‘Quite. Well?’ The monosyllables scarcely calmed PC Standing.

  ‘We’re at Lydon Hall, sir. The scene of crime people said there was no point in leaving anyone here permanently, but we drive in and round the house as part of our routine until further notice.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, we’ve just met someone. Round the back, in the woods. He’s a kind of – ’

  ‘Wino Willy.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You know him?’ Relief at not having to attempt a description.

  ‘I know him. Sergeant Hook and I interviewed him,’ said Lambert, wondering if that wild oral pas de deux on the moor could be dignified as anything so formal.

  ‘It was you he wanted to see,’ said PC Standing, understanding Willy’s nonsense at last. He would not tell the Superintendent that Willy had asked for the Headmaster.

  ‘Do you have him there?’ said Lambert.

  ‘No, sir. We tried to get him into the car, but he ran off into the woods.’

  Despite his excitement, Lambert was glad Willy had not been manhandled. But he knew he must get to him; if Willy had tried to contact him he was prepared to speak now. And he was involved in this crime somewhere. All the suspects knew him, except possibly Simon Hapgood. George Robson must see him often on his daily walks with Fred on common and moor. Denise Freeman had known him well in the past and perhaps kept in contact. Emily Godson took him supplies of food and had been up to his lair three days before the murder. Jane Davidson had been close to the only son whose death had pitched Willy’s mind into the abyss. And Willy, he was sure, knew things about this death. Had almost told him things.

  PC Standing was struggling with the most difficult part of his message. ‘He – he said to tell you something, sir. It was in odd words – I couldn’t make sense of it.’

  ‘A quotation?’ Suddenly Lambert knew this was crucial.

  ‘Yes, sir, it probably was. I can’t remember the actual words.’

  ‘Try, Standing, unless you want to remain a PC for the next twenty years.’

  Standing put his hand over the phone, consulted his colleague. When he came back to them he said hesitantly, ‘Something about murder and a tongue, sir. And an organ…’ His voice tailed away as he realized how feeble it sounded.

  But he had given Lambert enough. The Superintendent could see Willy before him, hair wildly dishevelled, clothes in rags, eyes alight with pleasure as he offered the words of another sinewy mind that had gone astray. Willy, like that other beguiling riddler, was mad but north-north-west: this lover of nature would certainly know a hawk from a handsaw. And Lambert had the quotation ‘“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ,”’ he said.

  ‘That’s it, sir,’ said PC Standing, with surprise and admiration. He did not know that Willy had picked up the phrase with which he had concluded that headlong exchange on the moor, to signify that now he wished to speak.

  Lambert was exultant. Wino Willy was going to give him his murderer.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Have you found who did it yet?’ said Jane Davidson as she sat down.

  Perhaps it was just nervous bravado. Lambert was used to all
kinds of reactions from those involved in serious crime inquiries.

  ‘We have our ideas,’ he said evenly. He afforded her the briefest smile possible at the outset of an interview.

  He had arranged to see her in Stanley Freeman’s old office. George Robson, the new incumbent, was out for the morning and had encouraged the use of this inner sanctum, which was almost sound-proof. Lambert sat at the big desk in what must have been Freeman’s swivel chair, with Hook impassive as a Buddha on his left. They saw no sign of discomfort in their subject. Miss Davidson disposed herself unhurriedly in the comfortable chair opposite the Superintendent, placed her handbag on the corner of the desk, experimentally crossed and uncrossed her legs, settled eventually into the attitude she chose. A phrase Lambert thought to have forgotten years ago came back to him: in his days of National Service, drill sergeants would have called this ‘dumb insolence’. He watched her steadily; he could outsmart her easily enough at this game, where experience and rank were crushing attributes.

  ‘You will appreciate that in a murder inquiry we have to investigate the backgrounds and movements of all those close to the deceased,’ he said.

  ‘If you like,’ said Jane Davidson.

  ‘I don’t, always,’ said Lambert heavily. ‘It’s my job, that’s all.’ It was the way he used to pick up his daughter in the worst period of her adolescence. He looked down at his notes: this girl was the same age as that daughter, who was now expecting her second child. Jane Davidson was a young woman, with experience of life and its passions, not a fractious child. Youth had energy, and the ruthlessness that often came from a tendency to think in blacks and whites, rather than shades of grey. He resolved to think of her as a potential murderer. Or at least an accessory to murder.

  ‘Where were you on the night of this killing?’ The abruptness made it sound almost an accusation; he would waste no further time on tact and explanations.

  ‘I was at home. Look, I’ve been through all this.’ She picked up Freeman’s letter-opener, a small silver stiletto, and studied it, her crimson nails like gouts of blood upon its glittering surface.