Dusty Death (28 page)

‘No. That is why I asked what was the nature of your exchanges, rather than asking you to recall the actual words said.'

‘I'm afraid I can't recall that.'

‘Then let's try to prompt you. We established that you were trying to get her to work for you, as a pusher of drugs. Cannabis initially, you said, with a view to expansion into the market for harder drugs in due course. But it turned out that Sunita had already been recruited by the man next door, Wally Swift.'

David wasn't sure that they had established all this at their last meeting, not as clearly and unequivocally as this. But he couldn't find a detail to refute in what the man was saying. He said, ‘All right, I've admitted to dealing and to trying to use the girl. That's all I've admitted and all I'm going to admit.'

Peach gave him a sudden dazzling smile, which blazed like an arc lamp into his face. ‘Badly phrased, that, sir. It implies that there's more that you could tell us, if you chose to. Did you have an argument with Sunita at this last meeting?'

‘No.'

‘Did you cut up rough when she told you that she wasn't going to work for you?'

‘No.'

‘Did you find out that she'd been talking about your little drugs ring to the man next door, when you'd told her to keep it secret?'

‘No!' He found himself yelling out this third denial, could picture the shocked faces of his employees in the room outside. He tried to control his breathing as he said through clenched teeth, ‘You're making this up. There was no argument. I never laid a finger on the girl.'

‘No one suggested you did, Mr Edmonds. I was just trying to prompt your reluctant memory into action, that's all. You still don't recall the date of this last meeting with the dead girl?'

‘No.' Another denial. David sought desperately for something which would make it look as if he was trying to co-operate, without incriminating him. ‘It would be about the end of March in 1991, I suppose, as I said. It might even have been on the last day of the month.'

‘A Sunday, that would be. Did you meet on Sundays?'

‘I think we did, yes.' David was shaken by this detail, even though he didn't see how it could affect him.

‘That tallies with the information we have. No one seems to have seen Sunita Akhtar alive after the end of March.' Peach paused, letting the simple statement make its full effect.

‘I didn't kill her.'

‘Then who do you think did?'

‘I don't know, do I? Someone in that squat with her. The black boy, perhaps. He was upset when she wouldn't sleep with him, according to what she told me.'

‘Keep thinking, Mr Edmonds.' Peach stood up. ‘Unless you hear anything from us, you're free to leave the country on Friday. We have your address in Madeira.'

David wondered how this man managed to turn the simplest statement into a threat.

‘It's the first of March, Peach. High time things were moving. I'm being pressed by the media for a result.'

Superintendent Tucker was at his most petulant.

‘Thirteen years, sir, that body lay undiscovered. Considering how cold the scent was, I'd say we've discovered quite a lot in nine days.' Peach was understandably testy.

‘But you are nowhere near an arrest, despite all the support I've given you.'

‘I wouldn't say that, sir. I can't say an arrest is imminent, but we've made considerable progress. I'm pretty sure that our killer is one of the people I've spoken to myself in course of the investigation.'

That sounded impressive. Tucker decided it wasn't. ‘I really can't be put off with these prevarications, you know. I'm sure the Chief Constable wouldn't be taken in by them.'

‘Really, sir? He seemed quite impressed by our progress, when DS Blake bumped into him on Monday.'

Lucy was a member of the same gym as the CC, and they occasionally met there by chance, though they rarely spoke about their work. Tucker did not know what to make of this. He peered suspiciously at his DCI, but found Peach's expression inscrutable and his gaze fixed as usual on the wall above his chief's head. ‘But you've said yourself that you're nowhere near an arrest.'

‘No, sir. I said I wouldn't claim that an arrest was imminent. Different thing, sir, with respect.'

‘Have you produced a prime suspect yet?' Tucker jutted his chin aggressively.

Peach considered the question, but did not answer it directly. ‘I've just come from a man who's a very good prospect, sir. Statistically, that is.'

Tucker looked at him doubtfully again. ‘Statistically? I hope you're not going to come up with this ridiculous statistic about a Mason being more likely to commit a serious crime than other—'

‘Four times more likely, sir. In the area of East Lancashire, that is. My survey does not extend beyond our immediate environment. Not yet.' Nor would it ever do so. Peach's treasured statistic stemmed from the pinning of eight fraud and peculation offences on the same hapless company accountant two years ago, but if this lazy old fool couldn't work that out for himself, why should he be enlightened?

Tucker looked at him sternly. ‘If you're still trying to make out that David Edmonds is a leading suspect for this killing, I would have to tell you that I consider that most unlikely. He wasn't even in that squat in 1991.'

At least he remembers something, thought Peach. He tried to sound as solemn and portentous as he could as he said, ‘But he met Sunita Akhtar in the house next door, sir. And apparently recruited her to push drugs for him.'

‘This all seems most unlikely, to anyone who knows what a fine young man David Edmonds is. And even if you are correct in your contention that he had this wild youth, the idea of him as a murderer is quite preposterous.'

‘Let's reserve judgement on that, sir, shall we? I have to admit that there are other people who are superficially more likely candidates.'

‘Ah! This might after all be a useful discussion.'

Tucker wasn't much good at irony. Peach looked at him impassively and said, ‘There's a nun, sir, Sister Josephine, who's running a hospice magnificently, according to all the reports we have. And there's a successful businesswoman, Emily Jane Watson, who's running an introductions agency in Bolton. A very prosperous one, apparently. Apparently you interviewed Ms Watson yourself, sir, during a previous life. When she was running a brothel.' He was pleased by the casual way in which he managed to drop this bombshell into their exchange.

‘There was never enough evidence available. The Crown Prosecution Service would never have taken it on.' Tucker's reaction was swift and predictable. Ms Watson had run rings round the lazy sod: Peach had read the files in the Brunton basement.

‘Emily Watson might have recruited Sunita Akhtar to work for her on the streets. Or tried to recruit her. Or seen her off when the girl reneged on their agreement. Ruthless, I thought she was, when we spoke to her.'

‘You need to be ruthless to be successful in business, you know, Peach. You probably exaggerate her criminal proclivities. Just as you do with David Edmonds, if I may say so.'

‘You may indeed, sir. Part of your overview, that would be. What about another ruthless occupant of that squat, Walter Swift?'

‘Ah! Different kettle of fish altogether. A man who hasn't reformed his ways. A man who was a lieutenant to Joe Johnson. A man who has built up a lucrative drugs business of his own.'

‘A man who was laying the foundations for it, even then, sir. A man who had a capacity for violence; a man whom everyone in that squat seemed to be afraid of, if we can trust what they're saying to us now.'

Tucker jutted his jaw again. ‘You're right. In my view we have the man who committed this murder in custody at this very moment. All that is necessary is to document the case against him. That's your job, Peach.'

‘I thought it might be, sir.' Percy, who thought there was a very good chance that Tommy Bloody Tucker might for once be right, was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. He said, ‘He's wriggling hard, is Swift. Trying to implicate everyone but himself in that killing in 1991.'

‘Sure sign he's guilty, that. I have a certain feeling for these things. You may have noticed it.'

I've noticed your talent for the blindin' bleedin' obvious, thought Percy. Repeatedly. ‘Nevertheless, we must leave no stone unturned, sir,' he said, flinging one of his chief's favourite clichés back at him. ‘I'm off to see Billy Warnock this afternoon, sir.'

‘Good for you, Peach, good for you!' Tucker nodded absently, his thoughts still on Wally Swift and the announcement he would eventually make to the television cameras. Then his jaw dropped. ‘Who is Billy Warnock?'

‘Suspect, sir. The fifth person in that squat at the time of this death. Currently in charge of the youth team at Preston North End.'

‘Ah! Well, don't waste too much time on him. I want this one wrapped up by the weekend, you know!'

‘He's black, sir.' Percy couldn't resist experimenting with that gratuitous fact.

‘Ah! I suppose that puts a different complexion on it.' Tucker was quite unaware of any pun. ‘Most of the crime in our capital city is committed by blacks, you know.' He shook his head sadly and gazed from his penthouse window, now in elder statesman mode.

‘Yes, sir. This is Brunton, sir.'

Tucker gazed at him suspiciously, suspecting insubordination. But Peach was as inscrutable as a statue of Buddha. ‘You must do whatever you think is necessary, Peach. I never interfere with my staff, as you know. All I'm saying is that I want a person charged with the murder of Sunita Akhtar by the weekend.'

‘Yes, sir. Whether black or white, sir. I know that political correctness has no part in your thinking, sir.'

Peach left a suitably worried head of CID on that enigmatic note.

But events were moving faster than even Peach could have anticipated. Whilst he was reporting to Tucker, the CID section had a visitor. Lucy Blake called up DC Brendan Murphy and the two of them took him into Peach's empty office.

Matthew Hayward was on edge. He looked over his shoulder nervously to make sure that the door of the room was shut, as if he feared that even here his actions might be witnessed and punished. He said, ‘I've been threatened. I – I thought you should know about it.' It sounded cowardly to him, somehow. He was glad that the Chief Inspector with the piercing eyes and the aggressive manner wasn't here to make it seem more so.

DS Blake said, ‘In that case, you've done the right thing to come here and tell us about it. You don't think anyone saw you coming in?'

‘No. I'm pretty sure I wasn't followed. Probably there's no need to be afraid. I expect they think I've been frightened off and they don't need to do anything else—'

‘Much better to take these things seriously, though. You'll need to tell us all about it.' She gave him an encouraging smile, and her face lit up beneath the auburn hair, so that Matt could scarcely believe that she was a police officer.

‘Well, it was on Monday. Monday lunch-time, actually. I was on my way to give a concert with the Liverpool Philharmonic.' He still hadn't got used to delivering statements like that as if they were run-of-the mill, and he found himself shrugging away his fame self-consciously. ‘I stopped for a light lunch in what seemed a quiet pub between Preston and Liverpool.'

Brendan Murphy was suitably unimpressed. He said, ‘And why didn't you report this threat to us immediately, Mr Hayward? Why did you leave it for two days before you came in here?'

‘I – I don't know. I suppose if I'm completely honest, I was scared. The man told me specifically not to speak to the police, I think.'

‘Always best to be completely honest, when you want our help,' said Murphy dryly. He hadn't worked for two years with Percy Peach without learning how to put a man on the back foot.

‘Yes. It's just that nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and I was thrown off balance.'

Lucy Blake gave him that wonderful, encouraging smile again. Why couldn't the girls who were beginning to wait for him after concerts be more like this vision? She said, ‘Understandable. But as DC Murphy points out, the sooner we hear about these things, the more likely it is that we can nip any threat in the bud. Better tell us all about it now.'

He couldn't very well tell them that he had determined to keep shtum as the man had so forcibly commanded him to, that it had taken two sleepless nights to make him come in here and ask for protection. So he told them everything he could remember about that sinister figure who had accosted him, who had gripped the collar of his shirt and snarled into his face, in that quiet pub in Rufford. ‘He had dark blue eyes. Very dark – nearly black. Dark hair, cut very short. And beetling eyebrows. He was a big man, very powerfully built, and he – well, he seemed like a man who was used to using violence. He was carrying a copy of the
Daily Mail
.' Matt grinned in embarrassment at the feebleness of this last detail. ‘I'm afraid I can't remember much else about him. He took me completely by surprise.'

‘And how did he threaten you? Try to recall for us exactly what he said.'

‘He said he didn't give a damn whether I'd killed Sunita or not. All that mattered was that I was to keep shtum about anything I'd learned at the time. About anything she'd said to me about what had been going on in that squat.'

‘So he thought you knew something which could damage someone else who was in or around the place at the time. Something Sunita had said to you, perhaps. What would that be?'

‘That's the puzzling thing. I haven't been able to recall anything she said which would be damning to anyone.'

‘You know that there had been an attempt to recruit Sunita to act as a prostitute?'