Secret of the Dead (12 page)

“It definitely wasn’t suicide.”

Alan nodded an acknowledgement. “So what else do you want to know?”

Hunter responded, “As much as you can tell us. You know the type of thing we’re after. We’ve only spoken to his daughter so far.”

“He thought the world of Katherine. Her being taken away was the hardest part for him, though they’re back in touch with one another now, which I’m guessing you will already know. He rung me and told me when she moved back to work up at the hospital and said she’d found a house just round the corner from him. That made a world of difference to him, I can tell you.”

“Why did he and his wife split up?”

Alan Darbyshire shrugged. “You know how it is. Being a copper’s not easy. The unsociable hours and everything that comes with it. Being married to a detective is even harder for some wives. The long hours.”

“When did things start to go downhill for him?” Hunter already knew from Jeffery Howson’s daughter’s background statement that his wife left him in 1984, the year following the Lucy Blake-Hall case, and he wanted to check how much Alan Darbyshire was prepared to reveal.

“Jenny, his wife, was always a bit of a funny bugger. In our early days me and my wife, and Jeff and Jenny, went out such a lot together, but to be honest I always got the impression she did it just for Jeff’s sake. She could be a bit stuck-up. I know she used to give him some right earache when we went out on drinking sessions. I don’t think she was happy with him being a detective. What I’m getting at is that things between them were always strained and they just deteriorated. I personally thought good riddance when she went, but Jeff was devastated. He did everything to try to get her back but she wasn’t having any of it. In fact, to spite him she went off with someone else. If you ask me, I think she had a fancy man all along. I used to tell him he was better off without her.”

At the periphery of his vision, Hunter caught Grace rolling her eyes. He could guess what her views were of Alan Darbyshire. He smiled to himself. No doubt when they got back in the car she would express them. Moving on he said, “Okay thanks for that. That gives us some picture of his life. Now when did you last see Jeffery or speak with him?”

Alan Darbyshire rubbed his flabby chin and looked up to the ceiling, then replied, “To be honest, once we both retired, things drifted away between us. I took on a part-time job doing some security work, while Jeff became a bit of a recluse. I think the only time he went out was to nip down to the bookies. He used to like his horse racing. Then a good couple of months ago Jeff phoned me up after getting his bad news about the lung cancer, so I called round to see him. He was pretty down. I offered to take him for a beer but he didn’t feel up to it. I nipped over at least once a week during the past few months. I watched the cancer eat him away. It wasn’t a nice thing to see.”

“So when was the last time you saw him?”

“The Monday or Tuesday of the week leading up to his murder. He was killed over the weekend, right?”

Hunter nodded. “Late Saturday night, we believe.”

“I was at home with Pauline, my wife.”

Hunter thought he caught an awkward look on the retired DCI’s face, then noted how quickly he had retrieved his composure.

Alan said, “That’s the ex-detective in me, answering like that. Everyone you interview is a suspect, right?”

Hunter masked his thoughts by returning a forced smile. He recalled what Barry had told him about the nights that Alan Darbyshire and Jeffery Howson had spent together in the strip club, and the holidays with their wives, courtesy of an unknown businessman and wondered if he should raise it as a series of questions. He also remembered what Detective Superintendent Leggate had said at the morning briefing. Keeping on track with what he had rehearsed inside his head he asked, “What was he like as a detective?”

“Brilliant. Good thief taker, good interviewer. Worked hard and played hard. Everything a good detective should be.”

“Sorry to have to ask you this Alan, but you were his DS and his friend. Did he get up to anything dodgy?”
This was his opportunity to mention the strip club.

“I don’t mean to be funny, but where is this going?”

Hunter hadn’t managed to throw him off guard. “I’m not trying to draw you into anything Alan. I’m trying to establish if you were aware of anything untoward in Jeff’s past. We haven’t got a clue at the moment as to why he was killed.”

“Depends on what you’re hinting at. We did things differently back then. We didn’t have all that fancy forensic help that you lot have got today. We had to do things the hard way. We took more chances to get our results. Let’s just leave it with the fact that Jeff was a good detective.”

Hunter sensed an edge to his voice. “I’m not trying to accuse him of anything, or you for that matter. I know policing was different during your era. I know that from working with Barry Newstead when I first went in CID. I’m working with him now. He’s a civilian investigator with us and I have to listen to his ranting on about how the job’s not what it used to be on almost a daily basis.”

Alan Darbyshire’s face creased into a smile. “I remember Barry as a fresh-faced detective. He was a good thief-taker himself, from what I remember. Not as good as me mind, but if you were taught by Barry then you can’t be all that bad.”

The retired DCI’s response triggered what Barry had told him earlier about Darbyshire’s boasting. Hunter continued. “Going back to that last question. Did he have any enemies, or do you know of anyone he’d come up against in the job who could have held such a grudge against him to do this.”

Alan Darbyshire dipped his eyes down to the carpet. A split-second later he raised them again. That diversion of his gaze was enough for Hunter. He knew he had hit on something. Under different circumstances he would have gone for the jugular. But now wasn’t the time to push. He’d store it for later and see first what Alan was prepared to tell them.

“I’ve been thinking about that since I found out about Jeff. You could say all the collars we felt became our enemies. It’s like I said, we did things differently when he and I were around in CID. There were no custody suites like there are now. Just a couple of cold cells and if the villains didn’t play ball they got banged up for the night without a blanket. They were so cold, the next morning they’d sell their grandmother for a cup of warm tea. And I know a couple of the lads in the office would give their prisoners a bit of a slap to make them confess. That’s just how it was.”

“Was that Jeffery’s style?”

“Not giving anyone a slap. I never saw Jeff ever hit a prisoner. He could talk the hind leg off a donkey. His villains would cough just to shut him up.” He gave off a short laugh.

“What about any cases he worked on?”
There.
He’d given him the opening. It was his ideal opportunity to introduce the Lucy Blake-Hall investigation. He watched him slowly shake his head, lips set tight.

“We worked on so many over the years and you always got the odd villain whingeing or threatening to make a complaint about you because they weren’t happy with their treatment.” His eyes danced between Hunter and Grace. “You know how it is?”

“Any high profile ones that spring to mind?”

“Well there was one I recall. The Terry Braithwaite arrest brought lots of publicity.”

Hunter’s brow creased. He couldn’t bring that case to mind.

“The papers referred to him as The Beast of Barnwell.”

Hunter remembered it now. The case was an old one and he had often heard Barry talking about the job. He nodded.

“It was before your time, probably before you were born in fact. There were a number of indecent assaults and rapes on women in the late sixties and early seventies. Always in late autumn and winter and during a full moon, that’s how he got his nickname. For five years he ran amok, and then late one night in the woods he was disturbed by one of the night fishermen at Barnwell Lakes. The man heard screaming from inside a van parked in one of the car parking areas. It had always been a haunt for courting couples, but by good fortune such was the man’s concern at the cries that he went to investigate. He disturbed Terry Braithwaite in the middle of carrying out a rape on a young girl and he started banging on his van. The fisherman ended up in a scuffle with Terry but he managed to get away, but not before the witness had banged his hand one final time on the roof as the van was taking off. The next day the body of seventeen year old Glynis Young was found in bushes at the edge of the wood.” He lifted his arms, intertwined his fingers and rested them on his distended belly. “Terry Braithwaite had been one of our suspects for a couple of the assaults because he matched the descriptions of a couple of the e-fits the victims had given us, and he owned a van like the one described. The next day Jeff and I locked him up. He’d cleaned the inside of his van but he’d forgotten to do the outside as thoroughly as the inside and SOCO found the fisherman’s handprint still on the roof. It was one of Jeff’s first big jobs; he’d been in CID about a year. The upshot was that Braithwaite got life in nineteen-seventy-three with a minimum thirty year sentence. He sent word out from his cell that he was going to get us back for that. He said we had stitched him up even with the evidence from the witness. He had two appeals turned down. He did over thirty in the end and was released two years ago. You might recall there was a big splash about him in the local paper. The Chronicle got wind of his release and didn’t know if he’d come back to Barnwell to live. I read that the Probation Service stated Braithwaite was in a bail hostel in another county.” Alan Darbyshire diverted his eyes again to the floor then glanced back up at Hunter. “Terry Braithwaite would be a good start for your enquiries. He was a nasty piece of work and never forgave us. Jeffery and I visited him in prison on quite a few occasions over the years because we were always convinced he had done more rapes than he was convicted of, either in neighbouring forces, or because some of the women hadn’t come forward; but he refused to talk to us. Yeah, if you can track him down he would be worth talking to. He’ll be in his sixties himself now, but he looked after himself inside.”

Hunter spent the next half an hour teasing out aspects of Jeffery Howson’s career, and although he freely talked about Jeffery’s working style and about their drinking sessions together Alan Darbyshire avoided mentioning the visits to the strip club and gave away no revelations which would take the enquiry forward. Bearing in mind what Detective Superintendent Dawn Leggate had said, he decided to bring the interview to an end.

“Well, thanks for that Alan,” he said, pushing himself up from the sofa. “You’ve been a great help.”

Grace shut her notebook and returned it to her handbag.

They shook hands and made for the door. The retired DCI opened it and as they were about to step out, Hunter turned.

“Oh, there was just one thing Alan. We’ve found some of Jeffery’s old pocket note-books,” Hunter lied.

“Pocket books?” he frowned. “They should have all been handed in when he retired. They destroy them after seven years.”

“That’s what we thought. Well it seems as if he hung on to a couple. We’ve got to go through them thoroughly but they seem to feature a case you haven’t mentioned. What was it now Grace?”

“Oh, the Lucy Blake-Hall murder back in nineteen-eighty-three.” Grace had quickly latched on to her partner’s wavelength.

Hunter could have sworn the retired DCI gulped. Despite the pudgy neck, there was a clear movement.

“Lucy Blake-Hall,” he seemed to stumble over the words. “Sorry, you caught me unawares. I had to think hard for a bit then. It was so long ago now. Jeff and I interviewed the man who killed Lucy. He confessed to her murder. Yes I remember now. He was found guilty at Crown and got life. It was such a long time ago that I’ve forgotten most of the details senior moment and all that”

Yes I bet you have! Your memory was pretty damn good when it came to recalling The Beast of Barnwell case, which was ten years earlier.

“It’s strange he should have kept those. Did he leave anything else about that case?”

“Don’t believe so.” Hunter raised another fake smile and followed Grace out onto the path. “Well thank you for your time Alan. If anything else crops up we know where to find you now don’t we?”

- ooOoo -

DAY FOUR: 27
th
November.

Hunter dropped his right shoulder and exploded forward with a deft uppercut. He followed up with a left jab, and a swift right, before dancing away into the centre of the ring and setting up his guard again.

Sweat dribbled into the corner of his eyes. He experienced a momentary sharp stinging sensation before blinking and wiping the salty water away with his training mitts. He switched his footwork and took up a leading position in readiness for another onslaught.

“Come on son, last thirty seconds,” barked his dad, Jock. “Then you’re done.”

Flexing his shoulders, he sprang forward again. Two hard and fast punches, right and left, smacked the leather training pads his father held. He dodged away and took in a great gulp of air. He had only been sparring with his dad for ten minutes, but he was drained.

It had been a long while since they’d done this. September had been the last time he had done any serious training with his dad. Of course he had visited his father’s boxing gym since then, but he’d only had time to lift weights and work the training bag.

There was also another reason they had not trained together. Hunter still felt a certain awkwardness when in his father’s company. He had tried to put the events of the past two months behind him, but in the background it had nibbled away. It wasn’t the ordeal he had been put through, but the fact that his father had deceived him and then tried to hide his past even when that past had got people killed. And now it was like his father was pretending nothing had happened. Hunter had done his utmost to reconcile himself with things, but it was still jarring away inside.
‘Your dad will talk about it when he’s good and ready,’
Beth had said to him on more than one occasion during the past few weeks, but with one thing and another, especially his work, he’d not been able to grab any time for a clear the air session.