Stranglehold (8 page)

‘Did you go into the
Roosters
Club?'

‘No.'

‘Why not, Mr Knowles? That would have given you an even better view of the “set-up”, wouldn't it?'

‘Yes, but I didn't want Mr Kemp or some official of the club to see me. Didn't want them to think I was spying, you see.'

‘Even though that was exactly the purpose of your visit.' Rushton permitted himself a small smile; the observant brown eyes creased a little at their corners.

Vic reached up and tugged at the tie which hung crookedly from his neck. ‘Look, you asked me why I was here, and I've told you. It's normal practice, isn't it, to want to know what you're letting yourself in for when you're considering a new job? I was just doing it discreetly, that's all.'

‘A wise precaution. Especially when Mr Jameson apparently doesn't even know that his job is at risk.' DI Rushton liked Trevor Jameson; and like the rest of the CID, he disliked Charlie Kemp, a crook who had so far been too elusive for them to pin down.

And he did not care for the man in front of him: Vic Knowles was ‘flash', with his smooth suits and his glib phrases about the game. Rushton, who enjoyed his football, did not like the flash operators he saw more and more often within the professional game.

Knowles said, ‘Look, I'm just trying to be as helpful as I can.'

‘As is your duty as a good citizen, Mr Knowles. So give us an account of your movements last night.'

The tape turned silently beside them, but Knowles's eye had caught the young DC to the rear of the Inspector, with his pencil poised over his pad. He could not shake away the image of a chronicler of his sins, that recording angel that had been planted in his imagination by an earnest Sunday School teacher almost forty years ago.

‘Well, I parked near the
Roosters
and watched the people going in.'

‘Time?'

‘I don't know. I didn't know I was going to be cross-examined about it today, did I?' Rushton gave him no more than the slightest of smiles. ‘I suppose it was about half past nine. Look, if you could just give me the details of this crime, I'm sure I could –'

‘In due course, perhaps, Mr Knowles. How long were you parked near the
Roosters?
'

‘I told you: I can't be precise. I suppose it was about three-quarters of an hour. Maybe an hour, at the most. I had the radio on. I listened to the ten o'clock sports bulletin, and I was there for some time after that.' Knowles ran both hands abruptly through his lank hair, as if he could no longer keep control over them.

‘And you watched people going in and out of the
Roosters.
Not a very exciting evening, for an active man like you.'

‘That's my business. Are you saying you don't believe me?'

Rushton enjoyed ignoring this man's questions. ‘And what did you do when you had completed your vigil of observation on Oldford Football Club, Mr Knowles?'

‘I went back to my digs.'

‘Where were you staying?'

‘At the
White Lion
.'

It was a run-down pub on the edge of the town, which still kept a couple of cheap bed and breakfast rooms, used largely by reps who wanted to make a bit on their expenses.

It was not the location recorded for the red Sierra by the observant beat copper.

‘So you were back there from about half past ten onwards?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you went quietly to bed? Not a very exciting evening for you.'

‘I was tired. I had a couple of drinks before I went to bed.'

‘Ah! That's useful; it means the landlord will be able to confirm your presence at the time you suggest.'

Knowles looked at him with a hatred that was suddenly manifest. He had never troubled to dissemble his feelings when he talked to the footballers who had called him ‘Boss' over the years, and he could not conceal his emotions now. ‘No, he won't. I had a bottle in my room. I didn't know whether I'd be staying in licensed premises or not, you see, so I brought a bottle of whisky in my case. I nearly always do. I've learned over the years to be independent.'

He was talking too much now. Rushton let him run to a stop before he spoke. ‘So there is no one who can confirm your story about the time when you returned to the
White Lion.
Unfortunate, that.'

‘Look, I don't have to take this. I've a good mind to make a complaint – I came here of my own free will ...'

He spoke like a man who expected to be interrupted, and Rushton deflated him by refusing to do so. He did not think this man would lodge any complaint, in view of what was still to come.

When Knowles ran out of bluster, he said, ‘You have been told that your car was noted as one of the vehicles in the area where a murder was committed last night. It was noted by a constable on his beat at 11.15 p.m. And it was not in the car park of the
White Lion
hotel. It was quite near the spot where the body of a woman was found later in the night. A woman who had been strangled.'

For an instant, Knowles's eyes widened, and showed the bright red veining at the corners. Then he cast them down; a small pulse beat for a moment at the top of his right cheek, and he flicked at it with his fingers as if it had been a fly.

Rushton said, ‘Are you telling us that someone else took your car while you were in your room at the
White Lion
and drove it to where it was seen?'

For a moment, it seemed that the lie would be attractive to Knowles. Then he shook his head sullenly. Rushton said, ‘Do you wish to have a lawyer present for the rest of our exchange?'

He judged correctly that the suggestion would strike Vic Knowles only as a further threat. When the man had refused the offer, he said, ‘I think it's time you gave us a full and proper account of what you did last night, Mr Knowles.'

There was a silence which seemed to Knowles to stretch interminably in the small room, though in fact it was no more than thirty seconds long. His irregular breathing seemed almost that of an asthmatic as his mind raced and he sought to control it. Eventually he said, ‘I went to the
Roosters
as I told you. It might have been a bit later than I said; it was going dark.'

‘What you are telling us now will form the basis of a statement which we shall ask you to sign, Mr Knowles. In your own interest, you should take care to be accurate. What happened next?'

‘I – I wasn't there as long as I said. Perhaps quarter of an hour – I did hear the ten o'clock sports bulletin on the radio, as I said.' He produced this irrelevance as if he had a desperate idea that it might confirm his integrity. Then, as if he realized how futile it sounded, he said, ‘But just after that, I picked a girl up.'

‘Is that why you waited outside the club?'

Knowles nodded sullenly, twisting the cheap digital watch on his wrist. ‘There's no law against it.'

‘There are laws against both soliciting and kerb-crawling. Those laws are not my concern at the moment, but –'

‘I knew the girl already, I'd seen her before.'

‘What was her name?'

Knowles's broad shoulders dropped hopelessly. ‘I don't know. I'd only seen her once before.'

‘But you had arranged to meet her outside the
Roosters
.'

‘No. Well, I had – Oh, I don't know.' Knowles dropped his eyes; they were unable to contend any longer against those relentless brown ones.

Rushton tried to keep his growing excitement out of his voice as he said, ‘You went there to wait for her, then.'

‘Yes.'

‘But you didn't know her name. Was she a prostitute?'

There was another silence: it pained Knowles to admit, as he knew he must, that he had been reduced to this. ‘Yes, I suppose she was.'

‘And you had intercourse with her last night? That was presumably your purpose in contacting her.'

‘Yes.'

‘At her place?'

‘No. In the back of my car. It was cheaper that way.' For an instant his searing self-contempt came through the words.

‘And where did this occur?' Rushton, who was having trouble with his own wife, was taking a ruthless satisfaction in the exposure of this shabby liaison.

Vic Knowles looked up at Rushton and the officer behind him for the first time in several minutes, and there was fear in those bloodshot eyes. ‘I don't know. I don't know this town. I drove to where she told me. Somewhere quiet on the edge of the town, but it was dark, you see.'

‘I see. Your car was recorded at just before eleven o'clock, just off the Gloucester road. Would this lady whose name you do not know have been with you at that time?'

He nodded hopelessly. ‘The time sounds right. I've told you, I don't know where we were. I just drove to a quiet place, as she directed me.'

‘How much did you give her?'

‘Twenty pounds. I told you, it was cheaper in the car. So long as all you wanted was straightforward sex, and you didn't take too long over it.' Again his disgust with himself seemed too genuine for a man like him to simulate.

‘We shall need a description of this woman.'

He gave them what he could. Young, seeming to him not much more than a girl. Dark hair, cut fairly short; red blouse; skirt navy or black; fishnet tights; a handbag – black, he thought. He was not even sure of the colour of her eyes. It sounded like the murdered girl: it could also be one of a dozen others. And that assumed, of course, that this man who had begun with a string of lies was now telling them the truth.

Rushton said, ‘And where did you drop your passenger off when this transaction was completed?'

‘I didn't. She got out where – where we'd parked. She said she hadn't far to go and she needed some fresh air.' He could not find the phrases for the self-disgust he had known was in her as well as himself that they should be reduced to this breathless coupling on the back seat; nor the abrupt way she had flung open the door and set off down the road while he had still been struggling with his trousers round his ankles.

He remembered his sudden fury that she should need to be rid of him like that. But he could not tell them that. Not now.

Rushton and his DC were watching him intently, as he eventually realized when he was forced to look up at them. Rushton said, ‘Did you follow her in the car?'

‘No, of course I didn't. Why the hell do you think –'

‘Did you kill the girl you were with last night, Mr Knowles?'

‘No. No. Why in hell's name should you think –'

‘A girl was found murdered within three hundred yards of where you say this girl left you last night. From your description, it could well have been the woman you say you were with.' Rushton eased his tall frame back in his chair for the first time, as if the better to study his man. ‘You say she left you alone in your car. What did you do after that?'

Knowles's voice was very low as he said, ‘I stayed where I was for a little while. Perhaps ten minutes, I don't know. Then I drove back towards the football club, until I found my bearings, and drove from there to the
White Lion.
The rest of what I told you earlier was true.'

Rushton waited, but Knowles volunteered nothing else. ‘We shall need to examine your Sierra. It will take us a couple of hours, maybe more. I'll get a police car to run you back to your hotel, if you wish.'

Knowles was about to say that he had planned to drive straight back to the Midlands, that one night in the
White Lion
was quite enough. But he thought better of it, and merely nodded. All he wanted to do at the moment was to get out of this place, and gather his thoughts.

Rushton said, ‘Do you live alone in Sutton Coldfield, Mr Knowles?'

‘Yes. I've been divorced for three years now.'

‘So there is no one at your address who could bear witness to your movements over the last few weeks?'

‘No. Look, I've told you –'

‘You told us a few minutes ago that you had already seen the girl you were with last night – the girl whose name you cannot remember – on a previous occasion. When was that?'

Knowles licked at lips which stayed obstinately dry. ‘I came down to the ground when the team played a testimonial match at the end of May. The last match before they went off for the close season. I'd been sounded about taking on the manager's job and it was my only chance to see the ground and the players in action. Oldford was just a name to me, you see.' At this moment, he wished with all his heart that it still was.

‘And when would this be, Mr Knowles?' Rushton thought he already knew, but he was determined to keep Knowles under pressure, and vulnerable.

‘It was about a fortnight ago. A Wednesday night.'

‘And you first picked up this girl on that night?'

‘After the match and a drink, yes.'

‘That match was on the evening of 25th May.'

‘If you say so.'

‘Mr Knowles, what do you know about a girl called Julie Salmon?'

‘I don't know anything, I've never heard of the girl. Why are you asking me this?'

‘Julie Salmon was raped and strangled on the night of 25th May. The last night when you were in this area. Until last night, that is, when another girl was killed in an identical way.'

Crimes like the Oldford stranglings tend to bring together groups of people who normally find themselves on opposing sides.

The few known prostitutes of the area were brought into the police station to be briefed by Detective-Inspector Susan Wild on the need for care in their movements. It was a strange meeting. DI Wild set up a little half-circle of folding wooden chairs and sat on one herself in front of the women, trying to make the set-up as informal as possible. Coffee was served in cups and saucers by a WPC who did not quite know what her attitude should be to the recipients as she handed round the biscuits. Everything possible was done to make these unusual visitors to the station feel at ease.