Least of Evils (3 page)

‘Tricky?'

‘Yes, sir. The inspections would afford a considerable degree of personal satisfaction and even certain excitements, but they might be tricky to implement. Call me a Jonah if you will, but I foresee accusations of sexual harassment from some of our more feisty female staff. And what the papers might make of it, I shudder to—'

‘Yes. Yes, I think I can see what you mean.' As always, the mention of media reaction and journalistic ridicule had Tucker's immediate attention. ‘Well, perhaps I'll look at it again before I circulate it.'

‘I think that would be advisable, sir.'

Tucker stared regretfully at the sheet in his hand. ‘It seems a pity, though. I've spent most of my day on this.'

Percy Peach noted as he descended the stairs from Tucker's office that the sun had now set on the last day of January. He tried not to think of the cost to the public purse of the hours Tommy Bloody Tucker had spent devising the dress directive he had just aborted. At least it had prevented the real damage he could have caused by actually interfering in the business of arresting villains.

Things had been very quiet for the last two months. What they needed was a serious crime of a really puzzling sort, so that the chief could worry about other things.

The man who had broken into Thorley Grange and stolen the jewellery was lucky. He was left unconscious by the side of the lane where he had fallen and been battered by his pursuer's boots. He wore a fleece, but his lower limbs and his wounded leg carried only jeans and trainers. On a freezing January night in this high and isolated place, hypothermia would have killed him before morning. But a little while after he had fallen, a motorist not only saw the prone figure but stopped to investigate it.

The hospital notified the police that a victim with gunshot wounds had been admitted, as was standard practice. The injuries were not life-threatening, but shock and the interval spent on the lane before he was discovered meant that the ward sister prevented the uniformed constable from speaking to him until three o'clock on the afternoon after he had been injured. He revealed that his name was Edward Barton, that he was twenty-two, and that he lived with his mother on a council estate in Brunton. Beyond that, he was resolutely silent, like a soldier taken prisoner who reveals only name, rank and number.

The constable reported to the station that it seemed unlikely that Barton's gunshot wounds were the outcome of a domestic incident. The matter was referred to CID with some satisfaction by the uniformed inspector. If this was going to occupy a lot of police time and produce nothing, let those clever buggers in plain clothes earn their money.

It was seven in the evening by the time Detective Sergeant Lucy Peach and Detective Constable Brendan Murphy arrived at the hospital. The nursing personnel had changed and the night sister was more amenable to police access to her patient. Possibly this was because there was a personable woman as the police presence this time; more likely it was because the patient had been surly, uncommunicative and ungrateful for what had been done for him. He had also threatened to discharge himself. The sister said, ‘I can give you twenty minutes. I hope you get more out of him than we can.'

Edward Barton had a thin, alert face and a discontented expression. His deliberately blank pupils focussed for a moment on the blue-green eyes, vivid chestnut hair and dramatic upper contours of Lucy Peach, vividly presented beneath a dark green sweater. Then he saw the tall frame of Brendan Murphy behind her and realized that these were filth. Plain-clothes filth, and in one case filth in a very attractive guise. But filth nonetheless, and therefore worthy of his controlled hostility. He blanked them and said, ‘I've nothing to say to you lot, I told that young sod that this afternoon.'

‘Indeed you did, Eddie. It was because you were so uncooperative to our constable that DC Murphy and I have ruined our evening to come and see you now.' Lucy afforded him a dazzling smile. Be pleasant, until you knew for certain that wasn't going to work.

‘You've ruined your evening for fuck all. That's all I've got to tell you.'

‘Oh, you can tell us much more than that, if you wish to, Eddie. The question is whether you choose to do so or not.'

‘I choose not to, bitch. I've already told you that. Are you thick or summat?'

Lucy smiled again, less friendly but still tolerant of his youthful defiance. She sat on the chair beside the bed and leaned towards the man within it, making him acutely conscious of her scent and her splendid bosom. Barton found both disconcerting, but he said determinedly, ‘I've sod all to say to the likes of you.'

DC Murphy brought another chair and sat down close to his sergeant. ‘You would be well advised to watch your tongue and be more helpful, lad.'

Barton transferred his attention reluctantly from the pneumatic DS Peach to the fresh face which was only a little older than his own. ‘Or what, pig?'

‘Or we might arrest you as you leave here and take you down to the station for further questioning.'

‘And why would you do that, punk?'

‘On the grounds of wasting police time, Mr Barton. On the grounds of refusing to assist the police in the investigation of a serious crime.'

Eddie wasn't certain whether they could do that, but he didn't want to risk it. He sank back on his pillow and gazed straight ahead of him across the ward. ‘I don't know nothing.'

‘Ah, so you know something. That's what we thought; that's why we're here.' Lucy Peach drew his attention back immediately. Eddie didn't understand double negatives, but he was obscurely aware that he'd made a mistake. He looked into those wide and lustrous female eyes and said, ‘I can see why they call you Peach, darling! You're a ripe peach, aren't you? I wouldn't mind stroking your—'

‘Who put those bullets into you, Eddie?'

‘Get lost, bitch. I ain't no grass.'

Murphy leaned across and touched the slight mound in the blankets which showed where Barton's right thigh was bandaged, producing an immediate gasp and wince from the patient. ‘Nurse! Nurse, I want you to see this.'

But apparently there was no nurse within earshot. Barton wished that he had been more appreciative and less surly about the medical care he had received earlier in the day. He tried to sound convincing as he said, ‘I'll have you for police brutality for that, you bastard!'

Lucy smiled. ‘For enquiring diligently after your health, Eddie? Perhaps you shouldn't twist around so much in your bed, if it's painful for you.' Then in a quite different, more businesslike voice, she said, ‘Stop pissing us about, Mr Barton. How did you acquire the injuries for which you have been treated here?'

‘I don't know. I don't remember. That happens, when you're in shock, doesn't it?'

‘Sometimes it does – when people have been almost killed in road accidents, for instance. But not when they've received flesh wounds in the upper left arm and in the thigh.'

‘Well, I don't remember.'

‘You got a good kicking as well as bullets, didn't you? From a man who battered you unconscious and then left you to die. A broken rib as well as gunshot wounds. If I were you, I'd want some sort of revenge on a callous sod like that.'

Barton did, and for a moment he was tempted. But the episode had left him with a deep fear which was more powerful. His face set into a sullen mask. ‘I didn't see nothing. I hadn't done nothing. I don't know who he was or why he did it.'

DC Murphy let his arms float over the bed for a moment, as if he proposed further examination of the patient's injuries. Then he folded his arms and said, ‘You were found outside Thorley Grange, Mr Barton. What were you doing there?'

‘Thorley Grange. Where's that?' Eddie was rather proud of the furrowed brow of puzzlement he contrived for this.

‘It's on high ground at the western edge of Brunton, Mr Barton. It's our belief that you know that perfectly well. So what were you doing there?'

‘I don't know how I got there – I never go up there.' He managed to look genuinely puzzled. ‘Perhaps that's why I don't remember anything. Perhaps I was shot in the town and then dumped up there after a good kicking. Lucky for me that someone found me and got the ambulance, I suppose.'

Murphy regarded him steadily for a moment, as if challenging him to further ridiculous speculation. He said tersely, ‘You've been very lucky indeed, Mr Barton – so far. I've a feeling your luck is going to run out any second now.' He reached towards the heavily plastered bicep beside him. Barton winced away, but Murphy merely put it back under the bedclothes with exaggerated solicitude. ‘Why were you in that lonely spot beside Thorley Grange?'

Barton stared straight ahead and spoke as if repeating a mantra he had memorized. ‘I've no idea why I was found there. I don't even know where the place is. Someone must have dumped me up there.' Then he said with more animation, ‘You lot should be trying to find who attacked me, not harassing a wounded man.'

Lucy Peach said quietly, ‘That's exactly why we're here, Eddie. But unless you're prepared to help us, we don't stand much chance.'

‘You don't stand much chance anyway. You're a waste of fucking time.'

DS Peach held her hand up as Brendan Murphy leaned over the bed again. ‘We've wasted enough police time on you, Eddie Barton. There's been a uniformed copper outside the ward all the time you've been in here, to make sure no one could get at you. You'll be out of here soon and no one will protect you then. You've strayed out of your depth, but unless you're prepared to help us, there's nothing we can do to keep you safe. You should think about that, while there's still time.'

‘Fuck off, pigs!' The reaction was automatic. Eddie Barton was no grass, was he? And the pigs didn't protect you, once they had what they wanted. He enjoyed his obscenities more because they were directed against a woman, and a pretty one at that – some vestige of ethics still told him it was more shocking to direct these things against a woman, even one who seemed to be as unshockable as this one.

She stood up now. The tall DC who was her sidekick stood too, between him and the window, blocking out some of the light, making the man in the bed feel suddenly more vulnerable. Lucy Peach said, ‘If you want to help yourself, let the uniformed officer outside know and someone will be down here immediately to take your statement and initiate enquiries. I strongly advise you to do that. Please note that I made that quite clear to Mr Barton, DC Murphy.'

The two of them were gone then, without a backward look at him. They issued some instructions he could not distinguish to the invisible man in uniform who defended him against unwelcome visitors.

After they'd gone, Eddie lay for a long time looking at the high ceiling above the fluorescent lights. Out of his depth, they'd said. They were right about that, even if they were stupid. He was a small-time burglar, however expert he pretended to be in that. He'd strayed way out of his depth and he still felt a long way from the shore. Not waving but drowning, the poem he remembered from school said. He felt some of the panic that poor sod must have felt.

Eddie Barton felt more alone and more frightened than he had ever felt in his life.

THREE

A
t Thorley Grange, the repercussions of Eddie Barton's attempted burglary were still being felt.

The man who had commissioned the new building on the site of the nineteenth-century cotton baron's site was a representative of the worst side of twenty-first century capitalism. A century and more ago, men who made fortunes from local industry had built their modern castles to display their wealth. Nowadays, fortunes came by other means. There were all sorts of rumours, but no one knew for certain exactly where the new occupant's money came from, or which was the most lucrative of his many enterprises.

Oliver Ketley was physically an impressive man. He was six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and hips and no noticeable embonpoint, even at the age of fifty-six. In his youth, he had been a fearsome centre half in amateur football; he had put on no more than half a stone in the last thirty years. No one knew whether he watched his diet or whether he was one of those fortunate people who could eat whatever they liked without adding inches to their waistlines. Certainly no one around him felt bold enough to enquire about it. He took little exercise save for the occasional game of golf at the North Lancs Golf Club, the best course in the area.

Ketley should have been a handsome man, but he was not. He had regular features in a large, square face, but they were for the most part expressionless, even when he seemed perfectly relaxed in convivial company. His inscrutability seemed always to carry a certain menace. He registered everything around him, but reacted to it as he pleased and when it suited him. His facial control gave him a sinister aura, which was enhanced by the fact that his eyes were a very pale blue, a shade which was inappropriate in such a face. No one enjoyed Oliver's stare. He had a good head of black hair, sharply parted and slicked straight back, in the style of an earlier era.

He was a physically powerful man, but none of those around him now had ever seen him use that strength in physical combat. When you made the amount of money that Oliver Ketley did, in the way he did, you made enemies also. He had killed, in the past – had murdered his way to the top, in the envious phrase of one of his contemporary villains. But he had long since acquired the hard men who were his carapace against opposition. He had muscle to defend him against any attack, muscle to enforce his will when that was necessary. In the twenty-first century, it was easy enough to hire hard and ruthless men as your enforcers, once you had the money to do that.

But loyal muscle was often unintelligent muscle, which could bring its own problems. Ketley was investigating one such problem now. James Hardwick was the head of his enforcers. This was a man who had also killed in his time, a man who carried the knife scars on chest and side which were the badges of loyalty and survival in the brutal world where he operated.