Unlucky For Some (14 page)

“But you took Stephen away. Last time you taped the interview.”

“It’s fairly standard procedure. He was the last person seen with Mrs. Fenton—he could have vital information. He might not even know that he has it—that’s one reason we question people more than once. To try to jog their memories. That’s why I’m here now, as I said.”

“All he did was see that woman safely home.”

There was a rather large flaw in that argument, but Judy didn’t point it out.

Jack was just finishing his routine maintenance at the casino when Mike Waterman came out of the office.

“Oh, good, Jack, I’m glad I’ve caught you. I just wanted to talk to you about the boxing evening.”

Jack frowned. “I put the confirmations on your desk. Didn’t you find them?”

Mike smiled. “Yes—thanks very much. It looks like a great program. You’ve surpassed yourself. But I need another favor. You produce the village newspaper on your computer, don’t you?”

Yes. Jack had had a computer ever since the first home model had come on the market. “I do,” he said. “Why?”

“I know you’ve already done a great job getting these bouts lined up for us,” Mike said. “I just wanted to ask one more favor. Do you think you could design a poster for it—you know, with the bouts listed? Only, I don’t want to spend any more money than we have to, so that as much as possible goes to the charity, and I know you can do as good a job as any printer.”

Jack was delighted to be asked, so the flattery wasn’t necessary. He’d enjoy doing that. He already had a thought about how it might look. Like an old-fashioned bare-knuckle fight bill. Or maybe like a cinema poster for one of these martial arts films. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

“Oh, good. Just the design, of course—I can get them printed off. I don’t want you going to any expense. But is it possible to do some big ones to go up in sports halls and places like that, and some smaller ones to put up in shop windows and through people’s letter boxes?”

“Oh, yes—leave it with me. I’ll even give you a choice of design.”

Mike beamed. “Thanks a lot, Jack. I hope you’ve got your DJ dusted off for the night.”

Jack smiled. Mike Waterman really did think that everyone had a dinner jacket, even if they didn’t get much occasion to use it. He really did. He’d been too long away from the East End, if you asked Jack.

Tony shrugged slightly as the door closed behind Grace. “Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s being particularly irritating at the moment, but I suppose she is worried about Stephen.” He picked up his coffee. “And I know you think I saw more than I’m saying, but I really didn’t.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you suspect Stephen, and because I didn’t tell DI Finch that I saw him with Mrs. Fenton, you think that perhaps I recognized him in the alleyway. But I didn’t. I don’t necessarily think I would have, so I’m not saying it wasn’t him—I’m just saying that I don’t know who it was. And I swear to you, I can’t possibly describe him any better than I have. Dark clothes. I don’t even know how old he was, except that he could run very fast, so I think he was quite young.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m hoping I can coax a few more memories from you than that.”

Tony smiled. “I think every memory I possess is now a matter of public record.”

He was much in demand for interviews with the press and TV since the news of the letter had broken. The interest wasn’t quite of the intensity achieved after the Challenger business, but it was getting that way, proving his contention that the public enjoyed following the exploits of serial killers, and this time they were in on it right from the start, which merely added to that enjoyment. And he didn’t think enjoyment was too strong a word; when a serial murderer was doing his thing, newspaper sales rose, TV programs netted big audiences, and publishers began looking through the backlists for titles that might benefit from a paperback run. It was murder as entertainment.

Everyone was waiting for this murder to be committed; even in Bartonshire, where the threat was real, there was a sense of anticipation rather than alarm, everyone secure in the knowledge that murder only ever happened to other people. The panic that had so worried the police was strictly confined to the media, where “climate of fear” had become the most overworked cliché in a welter of clichés.

“You might not know you possess these memories,” she said.

“How intriguing. Are you a hypnotherapist on the side?”

“No, nothing like that,” she laughed. “It’s just a technique that sometimes works. What you saw was over in a matter of seconds—you took in images and sounds and impressions all in the blink of an eye. You came to the conclusion in those seconds that the people you saw were drunk, but they weren’t, and I’d like to find out, if I can, what made you think that.”

Tony really was intrigued. “How does it work?”

“The idea is that you visualize the scene, and then I ask very specific questions about what happened in those few seconds. It doesn’t matter whether you have an answer to them or not. If you don’t know the answer, just say so. But it might make you remember details.”

“All right. Do I have to close my eyes?”

She laughed again, shaking her head. “Open or closed—it’s up to you. Whatever helps you visualize the scene.”

He closed his eyes, and saw again the entrance to the alleyway. What was his first impression? Just that there were two people in the alleyway ahead of him. “Okay. I entered the alleyway, and I could see two people about halfway along.”

“Which way were they walking?”

“They weren’t walking. They were just standing there.” He opened his eyes. “I didn’t tell you that before, did I?”

“No. I realized your statement didn’t make it clear. I thought you would remember that easily enough.”

He closed his eyes. “Go on. They were standing there.”

“Did you think they were drunk straight away?”

No. He had just noticed two people. He told her that.

“Were they standing apart or close together?”

He could see them, as a sort of silhouette, with no discernible space between them. “Close together.”

“Was one taller than the other?”

“Not noticeably.”

“Were they facing each other?”

No, he thought, they weren’t. “No. She was facing the door to the flats. He was behind her.”

“Were they touching?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he embracing her?”

“No.”

“Were their heads touching?”

He thought. They couldn’t have been, because he had seen two distinct profiles; that was how he knew it was two people. “No.”

“Their bodies?”

“Possibly. I don’t know.”

“Where were his hands?”

His hands . . . his hands were holding on to her. “On her. On her arm.” He smiled, his eyes still closed. He didn’t realize he’d seen that, but he had. “This is fun.”

“What did you think they were doing?”

That was when he’d thought they’d been drinking. No—he thought she’d been drinking. Drunk, he’d thought. The woman’s drunk. “I thought she was drunk, and he was trying to get her into the flats.”

“Why did you think she was drunk?”

Good question. Because she almost fell. “She stumbled.”

“Is that why he caught her arm?”

“No. He was holding on to her all the time.”

“Did you think he was drunk?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was impatient with her.”

“How did you know that?”

Because he was calling her a stupid bitch, Tony remembered. “He was swearing at her,” he said, and opened his eyes again, smiling broadly. “I’d forgotten that. Are you sure you’re not using hypnotism?”

“I promise I wouldn’t know how to hypnotize you. Did you see him hit her?”

Tony closed his eyes again. He turned into the alley, they were there, there was a sort of scuffle, he was calling her names. “I don’t know. There was a lot of movement.”

“Did he let go of her arm?”

“He must have.”

“Before she fell?”

He had seen them both upright, then she was on the ground. “I don’t know.”

“Did he raise his arm?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he kick her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see his face?”

Yes, side-on, but in shadow. “No features,” he said.

“Was he wearing anything on his head?”

He had just seen a shape. “I don’t know.”

“What color was his hair?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see her fall?”

“Yes.”

“How far away were you when she fell?”

He opened his eyes. “Still just inside the alleyway—as you said, it all happened in seconds.” He smiled. “After that, I really didn’t see anything. He crouched down beside her, but I couldn’t see what he was doing, because he was in shadow then.”

She picked up her coffee, and sipped it. “Was that when you went to her assistance?”

“No.” He felt slightly embarrassed, but he had to tell the truth. He felt a little as though he was on the psychiatrist’s couch. “I have to confess that I didn’t have any intention of going to her assistance. If it hadn’t been snowing, I would probably have taken the long way round rather than carrying on through the alley. But I didn’t fancy being snowed on, so I was just hoping to get past them without being spotted. And I took my time getting there. But he heard me coming, and ran. That’s when I realized that I’d got it all wrong.”

“Do you mind if we carry on?” she asked. “I’d like to see if we can get anything more on what you saw when he ran away.”

“Not at all.” He closed his eyes. He was enjoying this. “Fire away.”

As March wore on with no new murder, the papers and TV began to lose interest altogether, and turn their attention to other, more pressing matters, having decided that it was after all just a very expensive hoax.

But Mrs. Fenton’s murder wasn’t a hoax, and as the sixth week of the inquiry drew to a close, they were still getting nowhere. The lost half hour remained lost; the reason for the attack remained as obscure as it had the day it happened. So despite the lateness of the hour, Tom was still at work, still trying to think of some angle that had eluded him up till now.

The problem with twins, he had discovered, was that you had no sooner got Becky pacified and relaxed and ready to go back to sleep when David would start, and that would set Becky off again. Or the other way round. He and Liz had been up for what seemed like almost all night. It was, these days, unusual for them not to sleep through, but Liz thought they might have caught a bit of a cold. She could just go back to sleep herself afterward, however many times she was disturbed, but he always found himself wide awake, trying to sleep, listening to the clock ticking, knowing he had to be up at seven.

And another long day of dead ends and brick walls hadn’t improved his mood. Despite the many calls they’d had since the TV reenactment, and the painstaking work involved in checking them all out, no matter how unlikely, no new leads had presented themselves.

An amateur mugging was the official view, and Stephen Halliday was the closest thing they had to a suspect, but they didn’t have anything like enough to charge him. Anyway, it seemed to Tom that he was even less likely now that they had a slightly more detailed statement from Tony Baker. He couldn’t recall the assailant wearing anything on his head, or the color of his hair. Stephen’s fair hair would have stood out, even in the dim light. If there was one thing they knew, it was that the assailant wasn’t a bare-headed blond.

He was in the CID room, empty save for Gary Sims, when he made this observation.

“He could have been wearing his crash helmet at that point, sir,” said Gary Sims. “It’s black.”

“Or it could have been someone with very dark hair,” said Tom. Keith Scopes had done this, Tom was sure, however amateur it looked. “Like Keith Scopes.”

“I don’t know him, sir.”

“He works for Waterman as a so-called security officer. He’s a bouncer, really.” And there
was
an angle they hadn’t covered, Tom realized. He went along to Judy’s office, knocked and went in to find her putting on her coat. “Have you got a minute, guv?”

“Are you still here?”

“No, I went home half an hour ago.”

“Very funny. Does this mean you’ve got something at last?”

“Not really. It’s just a thought. Keith Scopes said he was doing a job for someone, right?”

“Right.” She sat down.

“And he works for Waterman. Who was at the bingo club that night, despite having to get someone to take him there, despite the fact that he always takes Sundays off . . .”

Judy held up a hand. “Are you saying that this job Keith was doing was to bump off Mrs. Fenton?” she asked.

He knew she would react like that, but it wasn’t so outlandish. “It could have been,” he said. “Waterman’s the only person with a connection to Mrs. Fenton that we haven’t checked out in any real detail.”

“Oh, come on, Tom.” Judy sat back. “Why would he want to kill Mrs. Fenton?”

“I don’t know, guv! Maybe she was blackmailing him or something. So he employs Scopes to get rid of her. He tells Scopes when she leaves—Halliday says he was using his mobile phone. He could even have told him that she’d won money, so he could make it look like a mugging.”

“There are several things wrong with that. One, we didn’t find any connection between her and Waterman when we checked into her background. Two, how convenient that she won money so that it could be made to look like a mugging. Three, since when would Keith Scopes walk away from over four hundred pounds? It would look much more like a mugging if he’d taken it. Four, if Mrs. Fenton was blackmailing anyone, it’s a bit strange that the money she won is the only money she had to her name. Five, if Scopes got tipped off about when Mrs. Fenton left the bingo club, why did it take him half an hour to get round to murdering her?”

That was a pretty good demolition job, Tom thought. But he wasn’t going to give up that easily. “All the same, guv, I’d like to go and talk to Waterman. I want to know why he was at the bingo club. If Scopes was doing a job for someone, chances are it was for Waterman. He could have been there to pay Scopes after he’d done whatever it was.”