by J M Gregson
‘Oh, I should think so. They seemed quite satisfied with what they had heard from me, when they left.’
But Judith wasn’t the best judge of that, he thought. When a woman had no sense of danger, it was impossible to instil one into her. If he hadn’t known that from the start, he certainly realized it now.
Twenty-Two
Chris Rushton said as casually as he could, ‘A couple of things have come up whilst you were out. One of them at least seems likely to be relevant to the Clare Mills case.’
His shirt was as immaculately pressed as usual, the cuffs just the right length on his steely wrists. You couldn’t let things go, just because you were divorced. The ironing board was as meticulously maintained as everything else in his uncluttered, sterile house. He spoke now as modestly as he could, but his body language told the real story.
John Lambert thought sourly that his detective inspector was positively preening himself. If a man sitting staring at a computer screen for much of the day could ever be said to be preening. Chris Rushton was getting altogether too pleased with himself. They must do something to keep the world in perspective for him. Something which would really cut him down to size.
Perhaps they should persuade him to take up golf.
Lambert was not usually as cruel as this. His escapist reverie was interrupted by Rushton saying carefully and precisely, ‘Denis Pimbury.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s been pawning jewellery. In Gloucester. Reported to us as routine. I picked it up because I was cross-referencing the name on my computer.’ Rushton tried unsuccessfully not to sound smug about that.
Bert Hook said thoughtfully, ‘Pimbury didn’t seem the kind of man who would have jewellery to pawn.’
‘A diamond ring and an emerald brooch.’ Rushton gazed unnecessarily at the entry he had recently made on his computer file for Pimbury.
‘We’ll have further words with him about that. See what his story is. Be interesting to know where a man like that acquired a ring and a brooch.’ Lambert wondered why he could not sound more grateful for the information. Rushton had done the job allotted to him, and done it well. ‘What was the other thing you had to report, Chris?’
‘Sara Green.’
Lambert was irritated by the way he produced the information, doling it out in answer to a series of questions rather than coming straight out with it. He wondered what Rushton had learned about that rather intense young woman who taught at the university. He was pretty sure that Rushton had never seen her, but he said hopefully, ‘Not another of the women you fancy, is she, Chris?’
Rushton, who was nursing a secret passion for Clare Mills’s former flatmate Anne Jackson, felt himself blushing like an adolescent. These two older men could always get him going, when he should have been proof against their barbs after years of experience. He said stiffly, ‘I would remind you that I have meticulously recorded the findings of your interviews, sir. So I am well aware that Ms Green prefers liaisons with her own sex. I am interested in her only as a murder suspect.’
‘Quite. And what have you discovered about her?’
‘That she has a history of violence. Serious violence.’
‘How recent?’
‘Nine years ago. She was twenty-four at the time.’ Not a child, Chris Rushton wanted to say. An adult, responsible for her own actions and the consequences. A fact which made the discovery especially relevant to the present enquiry.
‘If she has a criminal record, why has it taken so long to come to light?’ Lambert was aware that he was being unfair, that there was sure to be a good reason, but he didn’t feel like being fair to his priggish inspector at this moment.
‘She hasn’t got a record. Charges were never brought. The person concerned refused to go into the witness box against her.’
The old story with violence. If it was domestic, the parties made up, at least for the time being, and didn’t want to proceed with charges. If it wasn’t domestic, there were often more sinister reasons why no charges were brought: the victim was bought off, or more likely intimidated with threats of further brutality. Lambert nodded and said gloomily, ‘Let’s have the details.’
‘Sara Green was in a lesbian affair with a woman of twenty-two, who evidently decided that she was heterosexual after all and shacked up with a boy of the same age. Ms Green did not react kindly to that.’
‘She assaulted the woman?’
‘Yes. She threatened her with a shotgun when she discovered what was going on. Two days later, she attacked her with a kitchen knife.’
‘With what result?’
‘The woman was hospitalized. Two stab wounds in the chest and quite severe bleeding, apparently. It’s not clear how life-threatening it was, because the woman concerned eventually refused to take her to court, or even to appear as a witness in any case the Thames Valley Police chose to bring against Sara Green. She subsequently married the man concerned and emigrated to Canada.’
‘Pity about that. It would have been interesting to have her views on Sara Green’s temperament. As it is, we shall have to explore the detail of this incident with Ms Green herself.’
Superintendent Lambert spoke with some relish about the prospect of disturbing that composed lady.
Martin Carter was doing his best to save his skin.
Fear is rarely the best way to get results from people, but drugs were an industry which ran on fear. You couldn’t afford to ignore what the people above you in the hierarchy directed you to do, and you were perpetually aware of those vaguer and darker forces beyond them. Forces which could eliminate you without you even knowing who had killed you, without you leaving more than a swiftly disappearing ripple behind in the dark pool of crime.
Fear is the worst, most dangerous, motivation.
And Wednesday night certainly wasn’t the best time. But Martin wanted to make some effect, to achieve something which would show that he had taken note of the warning which Roy Hudson had delivered to him. So he put on his dark blue anorak, filled the pockets with some of the best and most sinister of his new supplies, and went out into the town.
It wasn’t the wisest or the most considered action to move so quickly, but Martin Carter wasn’t as experienced as he should have been to be operating at this level. Nor was he very efficient in this trade: as he had tried to explain to Roy Hudson, he was not cut out for it. Hudson might have been better advised to heed Martin’s estimate of himself, but Hudson was driven by greed. And greed unbalances judgement more quickly than any other failing.
With a boss driven by greed and an operative driven by fear, the omens were not good.
It was still warm when Martin left his house, still light on what was still very nearly the longest day of the year. It was after half-past nine on his watch, and yet the western sky over the Severn was a brilliant crimson, still and almost cloudless, betokening more fine, hot weather to come. Martin stared at it glumly as his feet carried him unwillingly over the familiar streets. He would have preferred rain and the cloak of a Stygian darkness for the work he had to conduct tonight.
People seemed to his oversensitive eyes to be looking at him curiously as he passed them. Perhaps he should not have worn the anorak. Even at this time of night, people were still walking in T-shirts and jeans; there was scarcely a sweater or a jacket in view. He was overdressed in the navy anorak. Worse than overdressed: he was conspicuous. Martin walked past the pub he had meant to enter, moving on, through streets where he had not walked before, streets which had come down in the world from their Victorian heyday, with high elevations diminishing the light from the darkening blue sky.
It was darker when he returned. The bright orange lights of the pub and the sounds of laughter from within it seemed to emphasize the gloom outside. He went in and ordered himself a pint of bitter, resisting the impulse to give himself the swift infusion of Dutch courage which spirits might have provided. He stood with an elbow on the bar, forcing himself to turn casually and slowly, to
conduct a detached assessment of the scene around him.
It didn’t look quite right. He would have liked more people around. In a busy pub, where people were crowded enough to brush against each other, where there was perpetual movement in and out and to and from the toilets, it seemed that nothing you did was noticed in the general mayhem. This wasn’t anything like as busy as that. About normal for a Wednesday evening, he supposed.
He had been served very promptly, which was not a good sign, from his point of view. There were plenty of people around, but in no way could you say that the place was crowded. There was plenty of banter going on between different groups, but they were aware of each other, aware of who else was in the place. They might even remember that he had been there, if anyone asked them later.
He had intended to drink his beer unhurriedly, to sip it, to estimate the situation coolly, to watch for the right moment. Now he found that three-quarters of his pint had gone without his even realizing it. Watch it, Martin. Keep a grip on yourself. You’re an experienced drug dealer now, not a novice. You could have a lucrative future in this business, if you keep your head and play things right.
Roy Hudson said so.
Martin had seen two of his agents, but he didn’t do any more than acknowledge them with his eyes, not even nodding his head at them. It was part of the training; you never knew who might be watching you, even in unlikely places. Better safe than sorry: Martin rolled out another of the meaningless clichés to himself and found that he had finished his beer.
He ordered another pint, leaning on the bar as nonchalantly as he could. He acknowledged a couple of students who knew him from the university, but took care not to be drawn into their conversation. The period he liked least of all was this lengthy spell of inactivity, where you sized up the situation and decided whether it was safe to make a move. Some people seemed actually to enjoy the smell of danger, sniffed it like hounds on a scent. He’d never been like that: the feeling of peril almost made him physically sick at times. He felt the stale bile of the beer at the back of his throat now.
At twenty-five to eleven, he went out to the small outside toilet, the one not visited by many of the clients, except when the place was crowded and there was a queue at the indoor ones. It was cooler now out here, and he could see the first stars in the clear sky. He relieved himself in the urinal, trying to welcome the strong scent of ammonia which overcame the traces of other, more unpleasant scents, trying to pretend that he was not waiting here for an assignation.
It could not have been more than two minutes until his man came out from the pub, looking studiously at the night sky until he was sure that they were alone here. He was a student from the university. But because he was not in Martin’s department, they had had no dealings with each other in that other, more innocent world.
‘Did you shift the stuff?’ asked Martin Carter. He stood ridiculously beside the urinating young man in the darkness.
‘Most of it.’
‘You want more? I’ve got good stuff. At good prices.’
‘No. I only sell to students. You know that. The next two months will be a slack period for me.’
It was so exactly what Martin had told Roy Hudson about his own situation that he could scarcely raise the will to argue, but he tried. ‘There’ll be others home from the holidays, from other universities and colleges. And you shouldn’t confine yourself to students, you know. There are plenty of other people out there who want what we can give them. They won’t beat our prices.’
The boy shook his head in the darkness. ‘I’m not making much out of this. Not for the risks I take. I’m only selling pot. My people don’t seem to want anything but grass. And there are too many people offering that. There’s not much profit in it, unless you can move bigger quantities than I can.’
‘You want to get them onto coke and ecstasy. That’s where the big profits are to be made. I can get you quality stuff and—’
‘I can’t move coke. Not in any quantity. I’ve tried. I’m not making enough to warrant taking the risks I take. I was hoping I’d have cleared my student loan by now, but I’m nowhere near doing that.’ He paused, blew out a long breath, which drifted the sweet scent of cannabis over the man next to him. ‘I think I want out, Martin.’
Martin knew that he should pressurize him, that he must lean hard on him, the way Roy Hudson had leaned on him when he had suggested quitting. He tried, but his heart wasn’t in it. And he had no real threat to offer. This lad knew nothing: he wasn’t important. No one would have thought it worth liquidating a part-time, amateur dabbler in the trade like him.
Martin told him that he had done the hard work, that once he had learned the rudiments of selling there was easier money to be made, that he had a foothold in the market which he could now develop. But he was no salesman himself, he realized now, and his blandishments to the younger man rang hollow. In three minutes more, he was alone again, contemplating the prospect of losing a member of his diminishing and ineffective sales force, when he had been hoping to expand it.
He waited in vain for the other contact he had seen inside the pub to present himself out here, feeling an involuntary shiver shake his chest, which had earlier in the evening been so overheated in his anorak. He wondered bleakly if Roy Hudson had been bluffing, if he would simply have accepted Martin’s departure from the organization if he had insisted upon carrying it through.
Martin wasn’t good at judging people, he was realizing belatedly, so he wasn’t sure. But he wouldn’t fancy testing out the idea that Hudson was bluffing. Those anonymous people behind him dealt out violence without a thought. His shiver turned into an unambiguous shudder of horror.
Martin was trying to compose himself to go back into the pub when another man came out. He did not seem very old, though with the light from the pub behind him Martin Carter could see little more than an outline. He had an anorak on, like Martin; it was the first one he had seen tonight apart from his own.
Martin had been about to re-enter the pub when the door opened and this man came out. He glanced at Martin, called a greeting, went into the urinal, carried on a desultory conversation about the sweltering evening as he performed in there. It was quite ridiculous, but Martin found that he could not leave him there without seeming rude.
And suddenly, he did not want to leave the man. Perhaps it was the fellowship of the anoraks: Martin’s nervous giggle on that thought told him how much on edge he was, should have been a warning to him. But he could think only of what Hudson had told him about developing new markets. This might be an opportunity to move outside the university ambience and into new and richer markets. This man surely couldn’t have come out here by chance.
As if responding to that thought, the man said through the darkness, ‘Smell of pot in here, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you are. The fellow who was out here just now had been smoking grass, I’m sure.’
The man finished his leisurely evacuation, shook himself unhurriedly, said amiably, ‘Bit of an expert on that sort of thing, are you?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’ The giggle came again, too loudly through the darkness. Martin worked his brain furiously. This man must surely be in the market for drugs, or he wouldn’t have come out here and begun to talk like this. And you had to speculate to accumulate: that meaningless phrase bounced into his head from some forgotten evening of gambling. ‘I can supply pot, if you’re interested. And other, much more interesting things.’
‘Can you, indeed? I’d certainly be very interested to see what you have to offer.’
It was strange, indirect phrasing. Most people were straight in with questions about price and quality. But they were both feeling their way, weren’t they? It would be good to have someone working for him who was a little older than his previous operatives, who would exercise an appropriate caution like this. Martin had the feeling that this might be the beginning of a productive relationship.
‘I can do horse
, coke and ecstasy. All at good prices. Even better prices, if you can shift certain quantities.’
‘Crack?’
‘As much as you want. And better quality than you’ll get anywhere else round here.’
‘LSD?’
‘Sure. You name it, we can do it. What sort of quantities are you thinking of?’ Martin could feel the excitement rising within him. He leant a little nearer to the man’s face, saw that he was unshaven, with the kind of lean face which often sat upon a heroin addict. ‘We can even do Rohypnol. That’s in short supply, but we can do it for you.’
The date-rape drug. They all wanted that. You could shift that without trying: it said something about the decadence of modern society, but there was unlimited money in Rohypnol, if you could get hold of it. Perhaps he imagined it, but he thought he caught a sharp, excited intake of breath from his new companion when he mentioned it. This might be the clincher in his recruitment.
The man said, ‘I’ll need to see the goods. Need to have evidence of the quality you can offer.’
Martin nodded, telling himself that they were almost there, that the man was hooked. Perhaps now he should back off a little, should seem a little less eager, if he was to drive the best bargain with this new member of his sales force. There was a low wall beside him, the remnants of what had once been a wash-house behind the pub. He dug deep into the pockets of his anorak, produced examples of everything he had named. ‘These are only samples, mind. We’ll discuss the quantities you think you can shift. Then we’ll agree a price and I’ll see you here on Friday. You bring the cash, I bring the drugs. Cash on delivery, that’s the way we work.’
He felt in control of himself and the situation, now, as he issued this series of orders. It had been much easier than he could ever have anticipated. He felt in his bones that this man was going to be a serious dealer, was going to shift the quantities Martin needed to move if he was going to appease Roy Hudson. He produced the tiny torch he carried in his pocket, flicked its beam over the array of drugs he had set out on the little strip of felt on the wall. In the sudden bright light, they looked like jewels displayed on velvet.
