Least of Evils (29 page)

‘Oliver Ketley.'

Peach nodded and sighed. ‘Yes. But you probably think I'd never have been able to prove it, and you're probably right.'

‘He wanted our shop in Preston. Apparently it would have been a nice cover for some of his dodgy operations. The licence to sell weapons appealed to him. Sam wouldn't sell. He never saw Ketley; it was all done through his hard men. They threatened Sam, said he had no real choice in the matter. They didn't know my husband.' At this darkest moment of her recollection, pride flashed out. ‘Threats made Sam dig his heels in. He said he was developing a good, legitimate business and he wasn't selling out to crooks. So Ketley had him killed.'

‘And being Ketley, he got away with it.'

‘Because he was too strong. Too strong even for the police. A law unto himself.' She rapped out the phrases she had hugged to herself for five years.

‘We'd have got him in the end, Janey. Even gangster bosses overstep the mark. They take on too much, or they get too confident. They begin to think they're above the law and get careless. It may take years, but in the end we get them.'

‘And during those years, small men like Sam get killed. They're just part of the game. They get no justice, because there's “insufficient evidence”.' She hissed out the last phrase, which some unfortunate copper had probably offered to her in the past.

‘So you administered your own justice.'

She looked at him, gathering in the meaning of his quiet phrase, bringing herself slowly back to this time and this place. She looked around the room as if she needed her photographs and her paintings to confirm to her where they were sitting. ‘No. I lay awake the other night wishing it had been me that put the bullet into his head. But that's silly; in daylight, I'm just glad Ketley's dead.'

He looked at her, still sympathetically, then said quietly, ‘Why did you come here, Janey?'

‘To Thorley Grange? To get as near to Ketley as I could. I had a vague idea that I would be able to do him some damage at some time in the future, if I could establish myself here. But someone took the matter out of my hands.' She looked round the room again. ‘I don't know what I shall do now. Greta wants me to stay with her permanently, whatever happens to this place. She says she'll have the money to keep me on.'

‘Ketley's money.'

She looked as if he had slapped her face. ‘I hadn't thought of that. I suppose it is.'

‘I don't think you should even consider it. Money's just money, a means to an end. After a few years. It's almost impossible to say where it came from. And Mrs Ketley's new partner is a rich man in his own right.'

‘She's going to marry him, you know. It wasn't just a fling.'

‘I gathered that. This death is very convenient for both of them.'

She was still and quiet for a few seconds. ‘That's a lousy thing to say.'

‘Lousy maybe, but a fact. Sooner or later, Oliver Ketley would have found out about Martin Price, however careful the two of them were. And you know better than most what happened to enemies of his.'

‘I accept that. I don't know anything about Martin Price, except what little Greta has told me. She says he used to be in the SAS. I didn't even know he existed until yesterday.'

‘He was also a mercenary in Africa. He lived by his wits and by the use of violence for many years: that's what mercenaries do.'

‘You're saying he has the right background and the right motive to kill Ketley.'

‘Both of those are obvious enough. I'm not saying he killed him, though. Do you think he did?'

Another of those sudden key questions, when she had thought they were finished with them. ‘I don't even know him. I hope not, for Greta's sake.'

‘Your friend and employer is an intelligent and resourceful woman. Do you think she and Martin Price could have done this together?'

‘No.' And yet the arguments were persuasive, she thought. ‘Ketley must have had many enemies. Have you no one else in mind for this?'

Peach glanced at Northcott, who had been studying her intently whilst she spoke about the mistress of Thorley Grange. Clyde said in his deep, dark-brown voice, ‘There is always the possibility with gangland bosses that they are taken out by rivals. That would almost certainly involve the use of a hit-man, a professional killer who makes a living that way. We know that Ketley had a rival who is anxious to take over his rackets in the north-west. We have a certain amount of evidence, but not yet enough to arrest the hit-man we suspect.'

Janey Johnson had recovered from the stress of speaking about Sam's death, but she was still very pale. ‘I hope it was this rival. And I'm glad Ketley's been removed from this world, for Sam's sake and mine. I can see that you have to try to arrest his killer, but as far as I'm concerned I shall be quite pleased if you fail.'

It was not the first time they had heard that view expressed. Clyde Northcott, who had seen life from the other side of the law and was not as clear-sighted as DCI Peach, found himself sympathizing with the sentiment.

TWENTY

‘
I
want progress, Peach!' Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker thumped his desk.

Percy Peach noted that the chief was in his masterful mode. Pride often went before a fall, especially when pride came in the form of Tommy Bloody Tucker. ‘This is a complex case, sir. Oliver Ketley was a man with many enemies.' Let the man see that he wasn't the only one with a taste for the blindin' bleedin' obvious. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, they said. But even the omniscient ‘they' didn't know T.B. Tucker.

‘I'm asking for a solution, Peach. And all you give me is more suspects.'

‘When a man is shot through the head in his own car and the crime is not observed, there are inevitably many possibilities, sir. We've narrowed the field. One of the problems is that everyone we've questioned closely has a strong motive for wishing Ketley dead. That is probably inevitable.'

‘What about the people working at Thorley Grange? Didn't you tell me the place was teeming with foreigners and women?'

There were probably grounds for charges of both racialism and sexism in that simple question, but unfortunately no moral enthusiast was present to bear Tucker from Percy's presence to the appropriate dungeon. ‘Not teeming with them, sir. In a house and business headquarters employing as many staff as Thorley Grange, women are inevitable and the odd foreigner highly probable, sir.'

‘I don't want your views on the evils of modern society, Peach.' Percy wasn't aware that he'd offered any. ‘I want a solution to a serious crime. It's what you're paid to provide.' His mouth set in the single sullen line of a child prepared to defy all logic.

And what you also are paid to provide. Paid more handsomely than any of us, you bleating balloon of belligerence. Percy enjoyed his alliteration as much as the next copper. ‘We have been working diligently ever since the crime was discovered, sir.'

‘Bullshit, Peach. I hope that is not simply an excuse for cutting deep into our overtime budget.'

‘One can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir.'

It was the cliché that Tucker used whenever his superiors or the press taxed him with improvidence. The chief superintendent had a vague idea that he was being sent up, but as usual he couldn't pinpoint the moment. He moved to what he considered safer ground. ‘The wife, Peach. You said she'd been acting in a suspicious manner.'

‘Greta Ketley. She'd been conducting an affair for a year before her husband's death. Brave, even foolhardy, with a husband like hers. I believe she will now marry the man concerned.'

‘Didn't you say he had a previous history of violence?'

‘Martin Price? Yes, sir. Not a criminal record, though. He was in the SAS and reached the rank of captain. He was then forced out and spent several years as a mercenary soldier in Africa. He was in charge of a group you could call guerrilla fighters, I suppose. I put full details of it in my e-mail to you.'

Tucker waved his right hand vaguely over his empty desk. ‘Why don't you get on and arrest this man? And the widow too, if she was in it with him.'

‘Lack of evidence, sir. Of course, if you'd like to give us the go-ahead for these arrests, we'd be happy to make them.' He stared steadily at his chief; a small, mysterious smile appeared upon the versatile Peach lips.

‘You know I don't interfere with my staff. I'm merely trying to GAL-VAN-IZE them.' It was a word Tucker had picked up from a recent management circular; he pronounced each fearful syllable of it in capital letters.

Peach did not seem as impressed as he should have been. ‘Martin Price is the man involved. Both he and Greta Ketley say they now intend to get married. Price has the know-how, the background and the motive for this crime, with or without Greta Ketley's assistance.'

The Tucker chin jutted aggressively. ‘Then why hasn't he been arrested?'

‘Because we haven't yet managed to place him at the scene of the crime, sir.'

‘Then get on and do so! Haven't house-to-house enquiries given you anything?'

‘Nothing conclusive, sir. Indeed, very little indeed. A woman thought she saw a couple walking away from the spot where the Bentley was parked at around half past nine, but can give no details of them at all, beyond the fact that they appeared to be a man and woman. She thinks they had linked arms or were holding hands, but she's not even sure of that. She was only interested in driving her own car into her garage and getting safely into the warmth of her home on a cold night.'

Tucker sighed extravagantly at this terrible omission by a member of the anonymous masses he was supposed to protect. ‘What about your hit-man?'

Percy noted that any unproductive suspect became his, whilst any promising one was ‘ours'. Tommy Bloody Tucker was a hopeless golfer, but he had the attributes of an experienced caddie. ‘George French? He's certainly a killer and we know he was employed by a rival villain to kill Ketley. But again, we can't place him at the scene. And whilst we know he received the customary advance payment for a contract killing, we haven't so far pinned down the second payment which follows the completion of the assignment.'

Tucker shook his head gloomily. ‘I hope it isn't French. If it is, you'll never pin the bastard down. And we need a result!' He leant forward and banged his desk emphatically.

‘We're watching Martin Price and Greta Ketley closely and keeping our ears to the ground, sir.' Percy suddenly caught the mixed imagery of this, and cackled high and loud. ‘Quite a feat, sir, if you could bring it off, eh?'

Tucker, who had started violently, now rubbed his ears vigorously. ‘I do wish you wouldn't do that, Peach. It's a most unseemly noise for a Detective Chief Inspector.'

‘Sorry, sir. I won't burden you with any further speculation or unseemly noises. I shall go away and push the enquiry forward vigorously.'

He left a rather dazed Detective Chief Superintendent feeling considerably irritated but very little wiser. Peach was clearly a difficult man to GAL-VAN-IZE.

On the night of Thursday, 24th February, Martin Price drove his car between the high gates of Thorley Grange for the first time in his life. He parked the BMW near the main entrance to the house, where it would be quite obvious to the resident staff. He got out and stood for a moment with a proprietorial air, admiring the impressive front elevation of the original building which was all that was visible here. He glanced round at the parkland through which he had driven, then mounted the steps unhurriedly to the front doors of the Grange.

It was the statement of intent he had agreed upon with Greta. He enjoyed making it.

Greta greeted him, then embraced him warmly in the privacy of her own apartments. Suddenly, they were in bed and making love. This wasn't part of what they had agreed beforehand, but it proved a wholly acceptable diversion. Martin lay back with her head upon his arm and gazed happily at the high ceiling. Then he frowned. ‘Is this the bed you used with Oliver?'

‘No. He had his own room and his own bed. I used to go to him there when – when it was necessary.'

‘Like a king and queen.'

‘Yes. Like Henry the Eighth, I used to think. You never knew quite what to expect. And you knew you mustn't step out of line.'

He drew a finger softly down the vein on the inside of her arm. ‘That's all over now.'

‘Yes. I can hardly believe it. I have to keep reminding myself.' She let him stroke her arm again, then leaned over and ran her hand through his short fair hair, feeling its springiness against her palm. ‘Would it have worried you, if this had been Oliver's bed?'

He smiled, his eyes upon the mouldings of the ceiling again. ‘Not really, no. I've made love in some very odd places, in my time. So long as I had you with me, the location would soon be forgotten!'

She loved him for that – not for the conventional compliment at the end, but for not disguising that he'd had other women in other places before he met her. She said, ‘It's time we were moving. I told them seven thirty for dinner.' When he reached out to restrain her, she levered herself up on her elbows and looked down into his face. ‘We've no need to snatch at things now, my love. We'll hold each other again in this bed tonight. We've no need to snatch at things for the rest of our lives.' She spoke wonderingly, as if she could hardly believe it.

They ate in the small annexe which she'd always used when there were no guests to be entertained with pomp and ceremony in the main dining room. She was there exactly at the time she had arranged. She was the mistress of the place and no one could have chided her if she'd been late, but she regarded punctuality as one of her duties. Besides, the food was always at its best if it didn't sit around waiting for you.