Unlucky For Some (5 page)

“No, guv. We’re drawing blanks everywhere.”

There was a knock on the passenger window, and Judy turned to see the long, thin face of Freddie, their tame pathologist.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lloyd,” he said, as they got out of the car. “How is Miss Lloyd?”

“Very lively.” Judy walked through the snow back toward the alley, the two men behind her.

“And Mr. Lloyd and your mama?”

“Probably worn out.”

“Not come to blows yet?”

Judy shook her head good-humoredly. “Oh, you’d love it if they had, wouldn’t you? Sorry to disappoint you, Freddie, but they get along very well.”

“And how are Master and Miss Finch?” he asked Tom.

“They’re blooming, thanks. They’ve not come to blows yet either.”

“Good, good. Tell me, was it something they put in the tea? Or were you all just suddenly seized with an urge to reproduce in order to make sure that there are little coppers and copperettes for the future?”

Freddie was always cheerful when he had a murder victim to poke around in, something Judy found inexplicable. He was clearly eager to get started on his grisly task, because the sooner he got this bit over, the sooner he could get the body to the mortuary and really have fun.

The light from inside the tent shone eerily in the gloom of the narrow alleyway, and Judy shivered as they walked toward it. She told herself the cold weather had produced the shiver, but it hadn’t. To the eyes of any normal mortal, murder scenes were uniformly dismal and bleak.

But to Freddie they were positively uplifting, and he beamed as they went into the tent. “Gangway,” he said, crouching down and conducting the careful, eyes-only examination with which he always began. This one didn’t take very long; after just a few moments, he sat back on his heels. “One blow to the back of the head which fractured the skull. Not a great deal of external bleeding, so the assailant isn’t likely to have blood on his clothing.” He looked up. “The usual blunt instrument,” he said. “I suspect it might just have been an accident.”

“Hitting people with blunt instruments isn’t accidental, Freddie.”

He smiled. “You’re getting as bad as your husband. You know what I mean. I think her
death
might have been accidental, because I don’t think this blow was intended to kill her—he probably meant just to knock her out. Some people have abnormally thin skulls—I think that’s what we’ve got here. One blow wouldn’t normally do this amount of damage.”

“There’s nothing to suggest that it might be more than just a spur-of-the-moment mugging?”

“Ah, now, that’s where you differ from your husband. He groans if I suggest that a murder has deeper implications than are apparent at first, whereas you clearly want me to say that.” He grinned. “Well, sorry, but so far it looks to me like a mugging with an unintentionally tragic outcome.”

“We’ve got a missing half hour. It’s possible the assailant was with the victim for thirty minutes or so before she died.”

“Yes?” Freddie looked interested. “Well, leave me to it, and I’ll see what I can come up with. There’s no apparent reason to suspect sexual assault, but obviously I’ll take swabs. And there are no other obvious injuries, but once I’ve got her clothes off I might find more.” He got to his feet. “That’s it,” he told the attendants. “You can take the body to the mortuary now.”

As the body was being put in the body bag, all three left the tent, and Freddie headed back down the alleyway to his car. “I’ll be doing the postmortem examination at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said wickedly, as he walked away. “I don’t know which of you wants the pleasure of my company just after you’ve had your breakfast.” He raised his hand as a farewell, and didn’t wait for a reply.

Judy smiled at Tom. “Didn’t you say you were taking me to a nightclub?”

In the little lounge bar—the only bar—of the Tulliver Inn, Jack Shaw listened as Tony Baker recounted his story for the third time. Everyone who came in had to hear it, though that wasn’t Baker’s fault, Jack had to concede. Grace insisted.

She had brought a meal for him as soon as he came in, and now he was holding court while he ate, and she was hanging on his every word, even though she’d heard the story three times herself. Suddenly, he wasn’t just handsome and suntanned and rich and famous—he was a bloody hero as well. And for what? Stumbling over a dead body.

In his capacity as editor, reporter, printer, publisher and distributor of the
Stoke Weston Clarion,
Jack had interviewed him. He had wondered what was going on in the alley, when he had left the nightclub to go back for Mr. Waterman. He had had to go the long way round, because the police had cordoned it off. So Baker’s story was, Jack had to admit, interesting. The first time.

“I wish I’d chased the bastard now, because there was nothing I could do for her,” Baker was saying.

Oh, yes, that would have been good, wouldn’t it? Yes, Baker must be kicking himself for stopping to help a dead woman instead of getting himself all over the papers again. Jack got up and went to the bar before it closed. He didn’t really want another drink, but Rosie the barmaid wasn’t in tonight, so Grace would have to serve him.

Grace detached herself from the knot of people at Baker’s table. “Yes, Jack, what can I get you?” she asked, lifting the flap and going behind the bar, smiling at him professionally.

“I’ll have another one in there, please.” He pushed his empty pint glass over to her.

Grace pulled his pint. The Tulliver still had old-fashioned beer-pumps, and it had been a while before Grace had got the hang of them. She was the consummate professional now. She put the replenished glass on the towel on the bar. “There you are, my love.”

My love. Funny how people used expressions like that every day, to anyone and everyone. To complete strangers, sometimes. They weren’t declarations of love—they didn’t even suggest affection. My love, darling, pet, sweetheart . . . they were meaningless forms of address, and she wouldn’t even know that she’d said it.

Jack paid for his beer, wishing he could think of something to say that would keep her from going back to Baker. Other people had small talk, but he didn’t. He spoke when he had something to say, and he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say except things that he couldn’t say. Like how much he admired her, going on a course and taking on this pub on her own when her husband ran out on her before they’d been in the pub six months. Like how much he enjoyed her company, or at least had enjoyed it before Baker came here and she suddenly had eyes for no one else. Not that she’d ever had eyes for him, not really. They were friendly—he had hit it off with Stephen when he was a boy, and was as close to the Hallidays as anyone was. But not the way he wanted to be. He wanted to say all that, and he wanted to tell her how much he would give to have her call him my love and mean it. But he couldn’t.

She was back with Baker now, as he had known she would be as soon as her bar duties had been discharged. Stephen had confirmed that she fancied him. He hadn’t really needed to hear Stephen say it, but he had hoped that it was just jealousy that was making him imagine that she looked at Baker the way she did. Evidently not.

He supposed it really was jealousy that made him dislike Baker as much as he did, but he couldn’t be sure of that. Everyone else seemed to get on with him, but Jack didn’t like him and he didn’t trust him, and it seemed that Stephen felt the same way. If Grace got involved with him, she’d regret it, he was sure of that. A man like Baker would take whatever was on offer, and then he’d be off, without a qualm. He and his wife had split up over the South Coast murders business, because it was much more important to him than she was. Grace would do well to remember that.

Jack sipped his drink at the bar, and tried to ignore the animated chat from their table. Stephen had said that Baker wasn’t interested in her, and he certainly didn’t seem to be making any sort of a play for her. In fact, he barely included her in what he was saying, to the point of ill manners, it seemed to Jack. So he probably didn’t have designs on her.

But the way she had reacted to Baker underlined just how little chance Jack stood with her. He wondered whether or not to do what he had come to do, and decided that he would. From his inside pocket, he pulled out the long, thin envelope, and left it on the shelf under the bar for Grace to find when she cleared up in the morning.

Innes Passage ran from Murchison Place to Waring Road, which formed a T-junction with Stansfield Road, dead ahead of the alley. The last twenty yards or so of the alleyway formed the side wall of the nightclub, and Tom and Judy became aware of the dull beat of the disco as they walked toward the snow-filled night. As they exited the alley, they stopped for a moment to get the lay of the land. Across Waring Road, to the right, was the car park, with exits onto Stansfield Road, which stretched straight ahead of them, and Waring Road itself.

“Did Tony Baker have a view of the alleyway when he was in his car?” asked Judy.

“No, he didn’t. He was parked right over there.” Tom pointed to the far corner. “I had a quick look in his car in case the murder weapon was in there,” he said, with a smile. “You can’t be too careful.”

“Did you think it might be?”

Tom wasn’t entirely sure. He had no reason to suspect Tony Baker, but there was something about his story that he didn’t like. He couldn’t put his finger on it. So he had walked him to his car, and, on the pretext of being interested in buying one like it, had even got him to open the boot.

“No,” he said. “Not really. But he knew her. And we’ve only his word for it that he was in his car on his own during that time, so we can’t rule him out, can we?”

“But you didn’t hang on to him,” she said.

“No—well, he’s diabetic, and he had to get back for his evening meal. I didn’t want him passing out on me.”

“What did you make of him?”

Tom scratched his head. “I don’t know, to be honest. He’s my other problem. I think you should talk to him yourself, guv. See what you think. He’s coming in first thing to give us a formal statement.”

“All right,” said Judy. “I’ll talk to him.”

They turned left, and walked toward the door of the nightclub, the music growing ever louder. “Waterman owns the nightclub, too,” said Tom. “I don’t know if that’s significant.”

“It might be, but I doubt it. Michael Waterman owns a nightclub and a bingo hall in just about every sizeable town in Bartonshire. Not to mention betting shops.” Judy stopped, and pointed up Waring Road, past the nightclub, and on the opposite side of the street, to what had once been three police houses. “He owns them, too,” she said. “He’s turning them into six luxury furnished flats. He heard about them through his brother-in-law, who is none other than DCS Yardley.”

Tom objected to their recently appointed head of Bartonshire CID on principle; Yardley was only a couple of years older than him, and it had taken Tom all his time to make it to inspector, never mind chief superintendent. “I hope the flats have got good soundproofing,” he muttered.

A man dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie was leaning against the wall just inside the door of the club, looking cold and very fed up, and detached himself from the wall at their approach. “It’s members only,” he said.

Tom explained who they were, and Jerry Wheelan allowed them to join him in the comparative shelter of the doorway. He said that he had seen a few people during the evening, but as he had no view of the alleyway, he didn’t know if any of them had used it. Tom turned to check what view of the car park he had, and the answer was that he had no view of the car park either, so he wasn’t going to be able to corroborate Baker’s story. The most likely-sounding sighting that Wheelan had had was a youth with fair spiky hair, wearing a black leather jacket and dark trousers, and carrying a crash helmet.

“He ran along here, and crossed the road toward the old police houses,” he said. “He disappeared round the back.”

“What time was this?”

“About 8.35 or so.”

No good, then, unless he came back, but Jerry hadn’t seen him coming back.

“Of course, I’m not out here all the time,” he said. “Well—not quite. Keith could have seen someone.”

“Keith?”

“Keith Scopes. He’s the other doorman. He’s inside just now.”

Tom glanced at Judy, and could see that she knew the name as well as he did. Keith Scopes had a fairly impressive record of street theft; nothing since the youth court as far as Tom could remember, but he had been very active in his early teens. And one of the times that he had tried to grab a woman’s handbag he had hit her when she wouldn’t let go, and she had to have stitches over her eye. He had been sent to a youth detention center for that, and that seemed, for once, to have done the trick, because he hadn’t been in trouble since.

“And have you both been here all evening?”

Wheelan nodded, then backtracked. “Well—no. I’ve been here all evening, but Keith went off somewhere for a bit. He’s supposed to be out here now to make up for it, but I got talked into letting him go in for a warm.”

“When did he go off?”

“About half eight. That’s how I know when I saw that kid with the motorcycle helmet, because Keith had only been gone about five minutes.”

Perhaps the YDC hadn’t done the trick. Perhaps he just didn’t get caught these days. “How long was he away for?”

“About an hour and a half or so.”

“Could we speak to him?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get him.”

They had a mugging, and a known mugger who had gone AWOL from his place of work at the time, but Tom, usually more than happy to accept things at face value, wasn’t content this time with the simple explanation. There was more to it thanthat, he was sure. Because if it had been a mugging, it had been carried out by an inexperienced mugger, and Keith Scopes certainly wasn’t that.

He saw the broad, well-muscled figure emerge from the dimly lit club, and felt old again. Five minutes ago he was a skinny little hooligan who had to have his mum with him when they interviewed him. Now, he was all bulging biceps. He would never have recognized him.