A Man Condemned

by Roderic Jeffries

  She brushed the tears from her eyes. ‘It was . . . it was the Saturday afternoon, before he went on night turn,’ she whispered.

  ‘Did you notice any damage to the off-side front wing where another car had brushed the wing and left behind a patch of its own paint?’

  ‘There weren’t nothing like that.’

  ‘You are quite certain?’

  ‘He’d of blown his top. Reg didn’t normally have a temper, but if anything happened to his car . . .’

  ‘There’s just one more thing. On the Saturday afternoon or evening, did anyone ring up to find out which turn Reg was on?’

  She thought back and again the tears collected in her eyes. ‘There was one of his pals wanted to know what turn he was on: phoned up as I was getting into bed. I told him, Reg was at the station.’

  ‘Did the caller identify himself?’

  ‘He said he was George.’

  ‘George who?’

  She shook her head. ‘He never said . . .’ She suddenly stared fixedly at Fusil and her voice became sharp, almost harsh: ‘You are going to prove Reg didn’t take nothing, aren’t you, Mr Fusil?’

  ‘If it’s humanly possible.’

  Within a couple of minutes he left the house and began the drive back to the station. Accept O’Connell’s innocence and the pattern became visible: a phone call, to make certain he was on duty; the breaking-and-entering on his beat so that he would be sent to the pub to make the preliminary investigation; the drive to Cleeton Hills in the early morning; being made to drink from the stolen whisky-bottle; the drive down the steepest hill and the side-sweep from the blue car which sent the Escort plunging off the road . . . Yet why should anyone want to murder O’Connell? And, having decided to murder him, why the faked accident designed to discredit his memory?

  *

  Despite a bleak and cold October day, when the huge, gnarled oak trees were shedding their leaves, Windleton Manor and its park were beautiful. Even Fusil had to acknowledge that.

  Surrounding low hills enclosed the wide saucer-shaped valley, in the centre of which stood the huge mansion, part Elizabethan, mainly William and Mary. Architecturally a bit of a hotchpotch (there had been many alterations and small additions), aesthetically it was nearly perfect because time had mellowed its stones, tiles and bricks, until it seemed part of the land. There were tall, mullioned windows, balconies with intricate wrought-iron balustrades, very tall, spiralling chimneys, roofs of quiet red-blue tiles, a pillared entrance porch of Homeric size and yet somehow still in proportion and two wings which came out and slightly forward, imparting a sense of flowing motion. Round the house were gardens and beyond was the park in which were trees which had grown old with the house.

  As they approached the gate-house and the tall, elaborate wrought-iron gates, Goatman said: ‘Stop here.’ Fusil braked to a halt. A man in uniform came out of the octagonal, stone-built gate-house and the inspector wound down his window and waved. The guard recognized him and waved back before returning inside. The gates, electrically operated, swung open.

  ‘There are two circles of defence,’ said Goatman. ‘One just inside the perimeter of the park and the other a hundred yards out from the edge of the garden.

  ‘They’ve chosen microwave movement-detectors, of the kind that have been developed by countries like Israel for use on their borders. Each unit, mounted on a fifteen-foot pole, is effective up to two hundred yards and will pick up the slightest movement, even through stationary objects up to six inches thick. The two circuits are connected up to two computers, independent of each other, which are normally powered by the mains electricity, but can be switched over to emergency generators. The computers are programmed to recognize and discard all movements made by animals and birds and by anybody who is carrying an identificator—that’s a box of tricks not much bigger than a matchbox. If movement is detected the alarm is automatically sounded both in the house and through a direct line at the nearest police-station. When the alarm is sounded, floodlights come on. Checking that all detectors are operative is automatically and constantly carried out by the computers: any problem and there’s a warning and, if that isn’t accepted within thirty seconds, the alarm is sounded.

  ‘There is a guard-room, on the ground floor on the north side of the house, where the guards on duty are when not patrolling the grounds or the ground floor with dogs. In the guard house they’ve light-enhanced closed-circuit television, with cameras with zoom lenses, which cover all the grounds; they’re in constant radio touch with us at the nearest police station.

  ‘The ground floor of the house is wired up to whatever alarm is best . . . A ghost couldn’t enter without setting something off.’

  ‘What about these gates?’ asked Fusil, pointing through the windscreen.

  ‘Two guards, always on watch. They’ve closed-circuit TV, a direct line through to, and radio contact with, the house. They’ve no control over the movement-detectors so, even if they were taken out without being able to raise the alarm, the alarm would be sounded the moment anyone entered the park . . . Well, what d’you think, Bob?’ asked Goatman.

  ‘I reckon the great big chief ought to be able to sleep at nights,’ said Fusil dryly.

  ‘Let’s go in now and look at the house with the blokes from Crabtree and Gosforth who’ll be waiting inside.’

  Fusil engaged first gear and drove forward. They passed the wrought-iron gates and started down the straight, undulating drive flanked on either side by massive oaks. For Parviz Jazeyeri, terrified of assassination, this great mansion would be like a prison, Fusil thought with satisfaction.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fusil went into Passmore’s office, which was on the ground floor of divisional HQ. It was a large, pleasant room and around it were several mementoes of his past life: framed photos of himself in army uniform, his two daughters and his wife, a jeep with Montgomery standing up in it and waving; the certificate of his entry on to the Rolls as a solicitor; a carved native head in ebony which at first glance looked merely grotesque, but at a second and more detailed look became downright evil . . .

  ‘I’m just back from Windleton Manor with Alf,’ said Fusil. ‘If there’s anything more in the way of security that needs doing, I’m damned if I know what it is.’

  ‘Then I’ll make out an official report.’

  ‘Have you heard when the owner’s moving in?’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do—presumably the original date of the fifteenth of October still holds good . . . By the way, I’ve been wanting a word with you. How are things making out with O’Connell?’

  ‘The whisky came from the pub and, as it was only delivered there on the Saturday morning and it wasn’t sold or given away, it had to be stolen. The lab tests show he was tight at the time of his death.’

  ‘Damn!’ muttered Passmore. ‘I’d have sworn he’d never have done a thing like that.’ With untypical pessimism, he added: ‘But then it’s virtually impossible really to understand other people.’

  ‘Menton discovered I was “wasting” my time on the investigation and he’s ordered me to drop it.’

  ‘Given all the circumstances, I suppose that’s not really very surprising.’

  Fusil said crisply: ‘I need a list of all the cases O’Connell was connected with during the last week of his life. Could you organize that for me?’

  Passmore picked up a ruler and began to tap this up and down against the palm of his left hand. ‘You’re intending to ignore Menton’s order?’

  Fusil smiled thinly. ‘He had occasion recently to point out to me that I’m in charge of CID and therefore it’s up to me to decide the course of investigations.’

  ‘Maybe, but when your superior gives you a definite order . . . Listen, Bob, are you being your usual bloody stubborn self or have you some reason to think the facts of O’Connell’s case aren’t what they seem?’

  Fusil explained what he’d learned and what he now surmised.

  Passmore la
id the ruler down on the desk and shifted his weight, making the chair creak. ‘Your theory falls down the moment you don’t accept as an act of faith that he’s innocent. Men will pinch whisky even if they don’t like it, simply because they’re getting it for nothing; men will do such inexplicable things as drive miles away from home at six in the morning to have a very private booze-up. On top of that, the wife could easily have missed the damage to the car, or it could have happened here, in the courtyard, on Saturday night and she wouldn’t know about it. “George” could have been a perfectly legitimate friend wanting a word with him.’

  ‘Agreed. And I still want that list.’

  ‘You’re obviously being your usual bloody stubborn self,’ said Passmore. But he said this gratefully.

  *

  Kerr handed the information to the magistrates’ chief clerk, who signed it. It was stamped with a pro-forma for the magistrate to sign. He carried it through to the courtroom, caught the attention of the court inspector and whispered that he wanted a search-warrant signed. Ten minutes later there was a break in proceedings and the court inspector told him to go into the witness-box. He went up to the magistrates’ desk and said, in a low voice, that by Almighty God the information which he had given was the truth. A magistrate signed the warrant.

  The magistrates’ court fronted the divisional station so that to reach the CID general room he had only to pass through a succession of doorways and corridors and then go upstairs. Once in the general room, he put the warrant amongst other papers on his desk and did not enter it in the Warrants Book—since he’d worked hard and long on this case, he wasn’t going to give anyone else the chance of executing the warrant and gaining the kudos of the arrests. Detection might be a matter of team-work, but only someone as naive as Bressett gave the other members of the team an even break.

  Smith, looking more mournful than usual, entered the room. ‘The gov’nor’s been shouting for you.’

  ‘He’s just going to have to wait until I’ve nipped down to the canteen for a coffee. It’s been all go from the moment I got here this morning.’

  ‘Makes a change.’

  ‘Give over,’ said Kerr cheerfully. He left and, since the corridor was empty, went towards the stairs instead of Fusil’s room. It was twenty minutes before he reported to the DI that he was just that moment back from the court where he had sworn a search warrant in the . . .

  Fusil interrupted Kerr’s account. ‘Here’s a list.’ He passed over a sheet of paper. ‘Those are the jobs O’Connell was interested in during the week before he died. Check up on ’em: you’re looking for . . .’ He paused. ‘I’m damned if I know what you’re actually looking for!’ Crisply, he detailed the reasons for Kerr’s enquiries.

  *

  The flat was on the sixth floor and on the door of the lift was a notice regretting that the lift was temporarily out of order. Kerr thought about those six long flights of stairs and tried to convince himself that there was no need to question Fiona Allbright. After all, O’Connell had merely gone to check her driving licence and insurance papers after she had reported a slight car-crash in which the other car, foreign-registered, had not stopped. Even with his imagination it was difficult to believe she could in any way be connected with the murder of a PC. If, indeed, the PC had been murdered.

  He began to climb the stairs, not knowing whether he was being driven on by an overriding sense of duty or the certainty that a woman with the name of Fiona must be a blonde with melting blue eyes and lips that scorched . . .

  There was no answer to his ring. He stared at the plain wooden door and cursed his stupidity in trailing all the way up. He knocked, more as an expression of resentment than because he imagined this might be heard where the door-chimes were not, then turned away, to go back down those six long flights of stairs.

  Across the corridor, the door to flat 6b opened. An elderly woman, small, petite, her hair carefully permed, wearing a flowered dress which wafted and flowed, looked out. ‘She’s not in there,’ she said, in a precise, high pitched voice. ‘She left suddenly on Saturday. Her mother has unfortunately been taken very ill and she decided she simply had to return home to nurse her. Very difficult for the poor girl, but there are times when one just has to make sacrifices, aren’t there?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, quite happy for others to make sacrifices. She reminded him of a winter sparrow, all darting motion.

  ‘She was going to leave me her address, but in the rush she unfortunately forgot. I do know that her mother lives in Sussex, though.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s that.’

  ‘You are . . .?’

  He could follow her sharp, inquisitive mind as it listed the possibilities: boyfriend, workmate, debt-collector . . . ‘I’m Detective Constable Kerr.’

  ‘A detective!’ she exclaimed excitedly. ‘What a surprise! . . . Why not come in and have a cup of coffee? I’ve a lovely coffee-machine, but I never seem to use it because when there’s only me it’s not worth the bother.’

  She introduced herself—Miss Datchett—showed him into the sitting-room and pointed out, with pride, that by looking out of the window and over to the right of a high rise building one could, on a really clear day, just see the sea; today was not one of those days. She left, to make the coffee.

  The furniture and furnishings were flowery: tulips on the curtains, roses on the chairs and entwined roses and forget-me-nots on the carpet. In the far corner was a glass-fronted cabinet filled with the kind of holiday mementoes which were usually thrown away soon after returning home. On top of a filled bookcase were a number of framed photographs of people in clothes which hadn’t been in fashion for a long time.

  She returned with a tray on which were two cups of coffee, in flower-patterned china, milk in a silver jug, two silver teaspoons, and some biscuits on a plate.

  When he had had a second cup of coffee, she offered him an unopened pack of cigarettes. ‘I don’t know whether you smoke, Mr Kerr, but if you do would you like these?’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’ He took the flat pack.

  ‘When Fiona left, she gave me a lot of tins of things and some butter and cheese—really nice cheese. And there were those cigarettes which since I don’t smoke I haven’t known what to do with. Are they all right?’

  ‘These? They’re in the luxury class. Pull these out at the station and they’ll ask me when I won the pools.’

  ‘I suppose . . .’ She paused and looked at him, her eyes alive with the pleasure of a born gossip. ‘I suppose they were given to her by her . . . friend. He’s very wealthy.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I happen to have seen him going into, or coming out of Fiona’s flat once or twice and I thought I recognized him, so I just mentioned him to Fiona . . . Girls these days are very much more direct than they used to be. He was . . . Mr Fawcett.’

  She had spoken as if he should recognize the name. ‘Fawcett?’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know him? He’s one of the wealthiest men in this town. As a matter of fact I knew his aunt because we went to the same school. Her family used always to give parties on two successive days and the important people were invited to the first day and what they didn’t finish up was served on the second.

  ‘I do hope his wife and family don’t know about it. ‘I’ve always believed that it’s true that what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over. What do you think?’

  ‘I agree all the way with you, Miss Datchett.’ He stood. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be getting back to work.’

  She might not have heard him. ‘Someone went into the flat on Sunday and as I knew she’d gone I had a look to see who it was. Mr Fawcett was in the sitting-room, so I told him what had happened . . . And, d’you know, he swore as if it were all my fault! His father would never have behaved like that. Naturally, I didn’t tell him that I’d known his family. After all, he hadn’t been born when I went to the parties and in any case I was only ever asked for the second day.
’

  As Kerr made his way down the six flights of stairs, he thought about a time when people were openly divided into first- and second-day guests and he wondered, with the sharp intolerance of modern youth, why those who had been asked for the second day didn’t tell their host to go jump in the nearest lake.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ’Appy ’Arry Galloway was, as his nick-name suggested, a mournful man who saw life as a never-ending succession of potential or actual disasters. He was a twirler expert who was also a fool because he kept in his house the carved ivory ball, inside of which were a succession of other carved ivory balls, which had so intrigued him when he had first seen it in Mulberry House. When Campson, searching his place, immediately recognized it from the description of stolen articles, Galloway admitted he had stolen it; he also admitted that Roy Yates had been with him.

  *

  ‘He and Yates did Mulberry House on the Friday morning,’ Campson reported to Fusil. ‘The owners were away, leaving just the one live-in housekeeper who couldn’t even have stopped a couple of young tearaways. The place was full of Chinese stuff, some of it very valuable, and they collected up a van-load, worth over thirty thousand pounds. They sold this to a receiver—who they won’t name—but Galloway had become so intrigued by how the ivory balls were carved out that he held on to them. The moment we found them, we’d got him.

  ‘Yates got the wind up when we started turning over all the local villains and making life difficult for them, so he bought himself the alibi to try to make certain we didn’t start getting curious about where he’d been on the Friday morning.’

  Fusil leaned back in his chair and stared across the desk at Campson. ‘So he panics and sets out to cover himself, and because he covers himself we nab him—it’s a pity he won’t be able to appreciate the irony of events.’

  Campson shrugged his shoulders. He was interested in results, not in the quirks of human nature which brought about those results.

  After Campson had left, Fusil telephoned Menton at county HQ. He reported that investigations had shown that Roy Yates had been carrying out a robbery on the Friday morning and was in no way connected with the wages-snatch and murder.