Least of Evils (11 page)

‘Yes, sir. I follow that.' She managed with difficulty not to protest her own innocence again.

‘Not many of the staff have access to my wife's bedroom. Not many of our domestic staff live-in.'

‘No, sir.'

‘What can you tell me about Amy Collinson?'

She had known that would be the name. ‘Not much, sir. She's younger than me.'

‘But she lives near you in the town.'

Janey felt a new thrill of fear. They'd been checking on her. But of course she'd filled in her address on an application form when she came here; Amy must have done that too. ‘Two streets away, sir. But I hardly know her.'

‘You went to the same school.'

‘But not at the same time, sir. We were never at the comp together. She's much younger than me.'

‘Yes. Almost exactly the same age as the man who broke in. Do you think they knew each other?'

‘I don't know, sir.' She bit her lip. ‘It seems likely.'

‘It does. Especially as they were in the same year at the school. Can you think of anyone else who might have fed our burglar with the information he needed?'

She made herself pause, hoping that he would think she was giving the matter some thought. ‘No sir, I can't really. But I don't know anything.'

He looked hard into her brown eyes for a moment, as if he wished to probe the darkest secrets of her soul. She was an attractive woman, slim but curvy. Janey: he filed away the name for future use. Then he said, ‘Thank you. That will be all.'

She stood, paused for a moment to try to check the nervous trembling in her knees, then walked as steadily as she could to the door. It was a relief to find that there was no one in the staff loo. She pressed her forehead hard against the cold smoothness of the mirror.

Amy Collinson disappeared quietly from the house and her employment there. A week later, Janey was relieved to see her four aisles away in the supermarket. Her treachery hadn't brought any more retribution than dismissal from her cosy job without a reference. Ketley didn't want to excite attention by eliminating low life.

On the next morning, the housekeeper, Mrs Frobisher, a seemingly unflappable woman of around fifty, called Janey in at the end of her morning stint. She smiled at her. ‘You've given complete satisfaction in your work here thus far, Mrs Johnson.'

‘Thank you. I'm glad to have the work. I like to feel I can turn my hand to most things.'

‘You're a widow, aren't you?'

‘Yes. For five years, now.'

‘And you've no children?'

A flicker of pain. ‘No. We were planning a family at the time of Sam's death.'

‘How would you feel about a residential post here?'

‘All right, I think.'

‘It would represent promotion and a higher wage. You'd be expected to turn your hand to all kinds of things, but you've already shown you're capable of that. And the accommodation would be free. In real terms, this would give you a substantial rise in income.'

‘Yes. Thank you.'

‘I'll give you a job description and details of the wages and the pension scheme this afternoon. You may wish to have twenty-four hours to think about it.'

‘I shan't need that, Mrs Frobisher. I'll take the post.'

The housekeeper relaxed a little. ‘That's good. I don't think you'll regret it, Janey. I'm a widow myself, you know, and it wasn't easy in the early years.'

‘No, it hasn't been for me. But I'm coping better now. And this will be a big help. Thank you for thinking of me, Mrs Frobisher.'

Five days later, Janey Johnson moved into a surprisingly comfortable room in the new part of Thorley Grange. It was more spacious than she had expected and it had its own built-in bathroom. Service had moved on a lot since the chambermaids and skivvies of the nineteenth century skipped up and down the narrow servants' staircases in the old wing. Amy Collinson had been a fool to blab out secrets and lose herself a job like this.

Janey hung her three dresses and her coat in the wardrobe. She needed only half of the spacious drawers to accommodate her tops and sweaters and underwear. She set out the delicate silver bonbon dish and the slender glass vase which were all she had brought with her from the wedding gifts she and Sam had received fourteen years earlier. The rest of her treasures she had taken to be stored at her mother's and father's house in Leeds.

She placed the wedding photograph of her parents on top of the slim chest of drawers in the corner of the room, pausing for a moment to smile at them fondly in their innocence. She hadn't thought when she left school before her exams that her mother would still be alive now. Then she unwrapped the picture of her husband.

She set Sam for a moment beside her parents, then reluctantly rewrapped the picture and slid it beneath the clothes in one of the drawers.

EIGHT

J
aney Johnson settled in quickly at Thorley Grange, as she had known she would. She had worked there since the new building was completed two years earlier. The transition was only to residential accommodation and a more trusted role. The housekeeper, Mrs Frobisher, kept an eye on her protégé and was well pleased with what she saw.

It took Chung Lee, the new employee in the kitchen, rather longer to find his feet. His work was good. The chef, Michael Knight, watched him closely in the kitchen and found him competent and speedy – speed is always a virtue for a chef, who has to work under pressure when his work is most on show. Lee's English was fine, though his slight accent was a steady reminder to the people working with him that he had not begun his life in Britain.

Because he wanted to convince the chef that he was as English as possible, Lee had told Knight at interview that he had been in the country for a long time. He had in fact arrived only three years ago. Though he was bright and intelligent enough to pick up the language and customs quickly, he still felt himself in an alien culture when it came to socializing. As a result of one or two rebuffs in the past, Chung was cautious in forming new friendships. This meant that being part of the residential staff at Thorley Grange proved at first a lonely life for him. He was surprised how comfortable the room provided for him was, but there weren't many possibilities of new friendships when so few of the staff lived on the premises.

Janey Johnson, whose room was only three doors down the corridor from Chung Lee's, felt sorry for him: the man with the smooth olive skin and the pleasant, unassuming smile must surely be very lonely, when he was not working in the kitchen. But they didn't see each other much in the course of their work, since she seldom ventured into the kitchen and he rarely worked outside it. And Janey was cautious herself about new friendships; she had long ago learned that a pretty young widow was a honeypot to questing bees, that friendly exchanges could too often be accepted as invitations by hormonal males. She kept a careful distance between herself and her new employer; now that she was living-in, Mrs Frobisher had dropped discreet hints about Ketley's occasional assertion of something like
droit de seigneur
with junior female staff.

Ten days after she had moved in at the Grange, there occurred one of those days when important business associates and senior staff of Oliver Ketley met for a day at the Grange. As Mrs Frobisher had warned her, it was a day when all hands were called to the pumps; Mrs Johnson was needed to act as a waitress at the tables for the major meal in the early evening. The kitchen, as is usual on such occasions, was not a place for the sensitive. Michael Knight, very anxious that all should go well, bellowed orders at all and sundry, with choice epithets added whenever the pace seemed to slacken or attention to wander.

In the event, the meal was excellent and the serving of it went off smoothly. Whatever crimes Ketley oversaw to make his wealth, he enjoyed playing the role of lord of the manor. As his guests retired to what had once been the old library for port and cigars, he came into the kitchen to compliment the chef on the meal and the rest of the resident domestic staff on the service. He offered gracious words of thanks, even though his pale eyes conveyed no pleasure and his sphinx-like features scarcely altered as he spoke. There would be a little bonus in the pay packets at the end of the week.

Whatever they thought of his bearing, the staff were pleased that he had acknowledged their work and the hard fact of extra money was well received. There were bottles of excellent wine to finish up with their own meals and at last they could relax. Most of them agreed that the boss was a fair employer, not a bad chap at all, once you got used to him.

There was one exception to the general approval. Janey Johnson was surprised to see the usually bland and unreadable Chung Lee give Oliver Ketley a look of pure hatred as he left the kitchen.

DCI Peach's preference would have been to arrive without warning, but he had to make an appointment to see Oliver Ketley. The police might know the man was a villain, but as far as the law went he was still pure as the driven snow. Or as Peach put it to Tommy Bloody Tucker, as pure as the driven slush. Ketley, like all major criminals, had his own well-paid, efficient and conscienceless lawyer at his beck and call. Oliver was simply a member of the public who must be asked to act as a good citizen and give the police whatever help he could.

Ketley saw them alone. Help was available at the end of a phone line if he should need it, but his habit of secrecy dictated that even those he employed were told as little as possible of his interests and activities. He sat this curiously dapper little man and the black sergeant who was such a contrast to him in comfortable armchairs. That way, they were a little lower than him as he steepled his fingers behind his big desk. ‘Always happy to give the law whatever help I can, of course, but perhaps I should tell you that I've cleared a half-hour window in a busy day to accommodate you. This will need to be brisk, gentlemen.'

‘It will be as brisk as you choose to make it, Mr Ketley,' said Peach aggressively.

Oliver transferred his pale gaze from sergeant to inspector. ‘I may choose to make it very brief indeed, if you continue that attitude. I may choose to have you shown out without even declaring your business. I would be within my rights to do so.'

‘But as a model citizen, you will obviously be anxious to give us whatever help you can,' returned Peach drily.

Ketley was not used to verbal combats. It was years since anyone had cared to challenge his opinions or statements. ‘What is it you want, pig?'

‘Ah! More the language I would expect from the gutter.' Peach nodded his satisfaction. ‘We're here to arrest whichever of your staff shot a man and put him in hospital. No doubt you will be able to identify the culprit for us.'

‘I've no idea what you're talking about.'

Peach sighed elaborately. ‘On the thirtieth of January, a twenty-two-year-old man named Edward Barton committed the offence of breaking and entering here. He stole valuable jewellery. He was fleeing from the scene of his crime when he was twice wounded by rifle shots fired by a member of your staff. Our officers questioned your staff immediately after this incident and received nil cooperation. The law says that you are allowed to employ reasonable force against a burglar. You are not permitted to employ a weapon which might well fatally injure a man, especially when he has already taken flight.'

‘The Americans are much more sensible about that.'

‘Possibly. But I am not here to debate the shortcomings of English law but to make an arrest. Am I to have your cooperation?'

‘I cannot give you that, because no such crime took place.'

‘You deny the shooting?'

‘There was no such retribution by a member of my staff, because there was no burglary here on the thirtieth of January.'

‘And if I produce a witness to say there was?'

‘You will be able to produce no such witness.'

‘Because you nearly killed that witness in the first place, then beat him up to make sure he kept his mouth shut when he was still convalescent, you mean? Well, I dare say you're right about that. I'd be reluctant to appear in court myself, if I had murderous thugs like the ones you employ to fear. Don't trouble to deny it – we both know you won't let it come to court. We'd like to speak to one of those thugs, though. A man with various aliases, most recently calling himself Wayne Taylor.'

If Ketley was surprised by the extent of CID knowledge, he gave no sign of it. His expressionless face was silent for a couple of seconds. Then he said, ‘Wayne Taylor is indeed a very junior member of my organization. He is presently employed in our Birmingham casino. He has been working there since the twenty-fourth of January.'

It was Peach's turn to disguise any trace of surprise or disappointment. ‘Strange that you should be so certain of that date, with such a junior employee. Well, as you say, this may never come to court. But we shall keep a note of Mr Taylor's offence, against the day when he is arrested for some other violent crime. It is surprising how much men like him will tell us, when they're facing a long stint in the big house.'

‘I've had enough of this. I've business to conduct.'

‘I believe you, Mr Ketley. It's almost the first thing I've believed since I set foot in this room.'

‘In our modern world, even detective inspectors who get too big for their shoes can disappear mysteriously.'

‘Threat duly noted, Mr Ketley. But you know as well as I do what happens when you kill a policeman. The whole might of the law is released upon you. There'd be so many boys in blue and plain-clothes men turning over this place that even your organization wouldn't survive it.'

‘Forgive me if I don't feel threatened. And now your time is almost up.'

‘You're safe enough, for the present, Ketley. But not for very long, now. Things happen fast, once those at the top begin to topple. All sorts of people in your organization may be anxious to sing all sorts of songs, once the Special Branch gets you for your crime on the fifth of February 2004.'