J. Gregson: Brothers

Two floors below him, Peach brightened. He’d spotted his old friend Jack Chadwick writing his report in the CID section.

The two had been colleagues once as detective sergeants, before Chadwick had been shot and wounded in a bungled bank robbery. His wounds had brought him much sympathy and an aborted career. He’d continued as a uniformed sergeant for several years, carving out a reputation for himself as a scene of crime officer. He was a civilian now, but still doing the same job, still the best man to conduct a thorough investigation of a crime scene that Peach had ever known.

His face brightened a little when he saw Percy. ‘Thank God you’re back. I never thought you’d hear me say that. Don’t let it go to your head.’

‘You had Tommy Bloody Tucker to contend with.’

‘The man’s a wanker. I used to think you exaggerated. He’s every bit as bad as you said.’

‘It’s best not to let him get under your feet.’

‘I didn’t. I told him to piss off — well, as good as. I’m a civilian now. I don’t have to put up with wankers like T B Tucker.’

‘So what did you find for us?’

‘Precious little. We’ve bagged all sorts of interesting little items, but the car park at Claughton Towers is a public place. Most of them were probably there before this happened. We’ve got five different fag-ends, but it’s the first outdoor spot people come to when they slip out for a smoke. I doubt whether any of them belongs to your killer. Two of them have got lipstick on.’

Peach noted without comment the assumption that their killer would be a man. It was no more than a statistical assumption. Over ninety per cent of killings where a firearm was involved were by men. But until they knew otherwise, he wouldn’t rule a woman out. The use of a pistol meant that no physical strength had been required. This big man O’Connor could feasibly have been shot by a woman, or even a child, though it seemed there’d been very few of those around.

Percy looked at the polythene bags on the other side of the little alcove. There was what looked like a hair grip, a couple of fragments of soil which might just have come from the sole of someone’s shoe but probably hadn’t, a ballpen which could be fingerprinted if it had anything to do with this crime. No used condoms, which were often collected from more remote spots, thank God. ‘What do you know of the victim?’

Chadwick smiled grimly. ‘Less than you, I’m sure. Successful businessman. Popular figure, as you’d expect an ex-international sportsman to be. Also a dodgy bugger, according to the police grapevine.’

Peach grinned. ‘You keep in touch, then. We’ve been watching him. So has the Drug Squad.’

‘You won’t need to watch the poor sod any more. Someone had it in for him.’

‘Or someone paid to have him killed.’

‘Contract killer?’ Jack Chadwick pursed his lips. ‘Entirely possible. A single bullet through the temple. No wasted ammunition. No extra noise. Mind you, even an amateur would have realised he was dead after one shot. This was a Smith amp; Wesson. You don’t need two slugs with those. Not when you hold the pistol against a man’s head.’

‘The bloke who lives in the entrance lodge didn’t see any vehicle drive out. Not until much later, when everyone left.’

‘I wouldn’t rely too much on that. Johnny Wilson lives in the lodge; he was always a dozy bugger.’

An ex-copper whom they both knew. Many ex-officers took on low-level security jobs when they left the service. Peach grinned ruefully. ‘One of the doziest. And he wasn’t even on duty at the time.’

Chadwick said thoughtfully, ‘If I’d been hired to kill O’Connor, I don’t think I’d have brought a car on to the site. There are plenty of quiet spots around the edge of the property where you could leave a car and enter on foot, if you were up to no good. Vehicles give people away.’

‘Thanks, Jack. You’re making this very easy. I gather it was well into the next day before Tommy Bloody Tucker got you out there.’

Chadwick joined with enthusiasm into the condemnation of inefficiency from above. ‘He hasn’t a bloody clue, that man. Tucker let the lot of them go without questions, I’m told. He makes you look like a genius, Percy.’

‘Geniuses need help, Jack. Or should that be genii? What can you give me?’

Chadwick shook his head gloomily. ‘Bugger all, probably. We’ve got the slug, so forensics will match it to the weapon if you ever find it — which I don’t believe you ever will. We’ve got prints from the door-jamb and the handle, but some of them are sure to be O’Connor’s and I’d lay five to one that none of them is chummy’s. A man like O’Connor is going to have lots of enemies; you’ll have lots of candidates for your killer.’

Chadwick left on that thought, with a smile which evinced considerable satisfaction.

It was happening, at last. It seemed a long time since Jim O’Connor had been so brutally removed from her. Sarah had been expecting to speak to the police ever since then; she knew enough about these things to know that they always spoke with the wife first. She would be the leading suspect, until they knew otherwise. That chief superintendent hadn’t seemed to know what to do. She’d been surprised when he’d allowed them all to go home, even more surprised when the next day had dragged past without any request to see her.

Jim had died on Monday night. It was midday on Wednesday when the police finally came to see her. The senior CID man who came seemed anxious to make up for lost time. Perhaps because she had watched too many TV series, she had somehow expected a grave, experienced man nearing the end of this service. This man wasn’t particularly young, but he was a bouncing rubber ball of energy who seemed to have to force himself to sit still and speak to her quietly. The tall black man he introduced as Detective Sergeant Northcott looked as hard as nails, but he stood very still until she asked him to sit, a calming presence compared with his chief.

Detective Chief Inspector Peach apologised for disturbing her at a time like this, but assured her it was essential. He said she must surely know about Mr O’Connor’s enemies and would thus be a vital source of information for them.

Sarah O’Connor felt an immediate need to distance herself from the death. ‘I’m sure he had business enemies. I know very little about his business dealings. We both preferred it that way.’

‘Did you, indeed? That’s a pity, from our point of view. But I’m sure you’re as anxious as we are to find out who fired that bullet.’ Peach made it almost a question, as if there were some doubt about her feelings. He looked at her evenly, studying her closely, despite his initial apology for intruding upon her grief. He saw a striking woman in a high-necked, dark blue dress, with glossy black hair in a ponytail style which made her look younger than her years. She was forty-four and her husband had been forty-six; it was a first marriage for both of them and they had been married for nineteen years. Northcott had provided him with this basic information as soon as he returned from his leave.

Peach left his words hanging in the air, knowing that nervous people felt a compulsion to break silences and sometimes offered things they had meant to conceal. Mrs O’Connor eventually said acerbically, ‘Of course I want you to find who killed Jim. We’d been married for almost twenty years, for God’s sake. My daughter’s devastated by this.’

‘Understandably so. But you seem to have complete self-control. An admirable quality, in these circumstances.’ Peach was nervous himself, conscious of the late start on what might be a difficult crime. It made him willing to push a widow harder than he would normally have done, once he had noted her composure.