More Than Meets the Eye (20 page)

‘And you're the one with the history of it. Nearly killed a lad of sixteen.'

‘That was in the old days. I was sixteen myself and ye were well used to violence. Ye didn't give a lot of thought to it. It was the survival of the fittest. That's what Ken Jackson said when he spoke for me in court.'

It was a tale they'd heard often enough before. A man handy with his fists who claimed he had to be. A man prepared to use any means to come out on top in a rough world, where only the quickest and most ruthless survived. Lambert looked at the now animated features steadily for a moment. ‘Did you kill Dennis Cooper, Alex?'

He gasped. It was the first time the older man had used his forename, and the sudden switch to the reason why he was here took him by surprise. ‘No! Why would I have done that?'

‘I was hoping you would tell us that, Alex. Because he was the man who held your future in his hands, perhaps? The man who had the power to deny you this future in the gardening world which you've just told us you passionately want? Had Mr Cooper said that in view of what had happened in Cheltenham you wouldn't be offered permanent work here?'

‘No. There was none of that.'

‘Then why sneak away from here like a thief in the night before we could question you? Why attract attention to yourself?? Wouldn't the normal action have been to keep your head down and get on with your work here?'

Fraser had kept his hands scrupulously still throughout. He was a veteran of police interrogation at the age of twenty, and one of his briefs had told him years ago that it was a good thing to control your hands. It showed them you were calm and unruffled, whatever you were really feeling on the inside. Now his control suddenly broke and he thrust both hands upwards, over the prickles of his short red hair. ‘I needed someone I could talk to. Someone I could trust. There was no one like that round here. I needed Ken Jackson.'

‘So you shot off from here during the night, without a word to anyone. What advice did Mr Jackson have to offer you?'

‘He said the things you've been saying – that it would look bad and I shouldn't have gone up there. So I had a few hours sleep and then came straight back. Arrived here at four o'clock. The bike did well.'

With this touching but irrelevant tribute to his machine, he looked suddenly completely exhausted. Lambert nodded to Hook, who said, ‘Where were you on Sunday night, Alex?'

‘Sunday?' He looked totally bewildered. He had lost all sense of time with his hours of racing through the summer darkness on two wheels. ‘Oh, that's when it happened, isn't it? When Cooper was killed. I was in my room. Reading, I think. I'd played golf at Ross, earlier in the day, before the rain came.'

‘Is there anyone who can confirm your whereabouts on Sunday night for us?'

‘You don't believe what I've told you, do you? That's because of what I've done in the past, not what I am now.'

Hook said with a professional weariness, ‘We've asked everyone the same question, Alex. It's routine.'

Fraser looked at him suspiciously, then said sullenly, ‘I was on my own. It was pissing with rain most of the time. I never thought of going out.'

‘So who do you think killed the man in charge here?'

‘I don't know. If I did, I'd have come and told you, wouldn't I?'

‘Would you, though? You're not a man to give much help to the police, are you?'

‘Ye don't trust the filth, where I come from.' It was automatic. And it was true enough – it was part of the city culture in which boys in care were reared. Hook leaned forward and said quietly, ‘I understand that attitude, Alex. I was a Barnardo's boy myself. I know what it's like to be without a close relative you can trust and turn to in a crisis. But you should realize that this isn't a rumble between gangs. It's more serious than anything you've been involved in before. Give it some thought. If you come up with anything which might help us, it's in your own interest to let us have it immediately. You should go and get some sleep now.'

Alex Fraser looked at him hard, then decided he could take what this copper said at face value. ‘No. I'm going back to work. I'll be all right once I'm in the fresh air. There'll be time to sleep tonight.'

John Lambert looked at Hook when the young man had left them. He'd had a certain presence, despite his youth and his impetuosity in bolting to Scotland. ‘He's got violence in him, that lad. Not too far beneath the surface.'

Hook nodded slowly. ‘He's needed to be violent, with his background. It's dog eat dog in a lot of council homes. He's trying to make a go of it, to make something of himself. I can understand why he fled to the only man whose advice he trusted. I hope they find him a job here. I reckon he'll give them damn good value in the years to come.'

S
ometimes things drop into your lap from unexpected sources. The source in this case was one of the voluntary guides at Westbourne, who came in only once or twice a week as required. When she was interviewed, she gave the facts to the most junior DC on the team. He promptly passed them on to DI Rushton and was praised for recognizing their importance.

Alison Cooper was not the grieving widow she had presented to them, or at least not only that. She had been conducting an affair with another man at the time of her husband's death. More importantly, she had concealed this from them when she had spoken to them about her relationship with Dennis Cooper.

‘We'll see them simultaneously, Chris,' Lambert decided. ‘You take Ruth David with you and see Nayland in his office. Let us know when you're ready to go in and Bert Hook and I will interview her at exactly the same time. It will prevent them from comparing notes.'

Two hours later, Rushton parked his car outside the modest office block in Birmingham which housed the headquarters of the businesses run by Peter Nayland. ‘We're ready to go in now, sir,' he told Lambert on his phone. He tried not to look at the alert face of the woman beside him. The cloak-and-dagger phone call made him feel slightly ridiculous, rather as if he had got himself involved in one of the American TV crime series for which he professed such derision.

Nayland's PA was predictably obstructive. ‘Mr Nayland has appointments throughout the morning. I might be able to fit you in later today, but you will need to tell me the nature of your business.'

Rushton flashed his warrant card. ‘We're police officers pursuing a serious crime investigation. Mr Nayland will see us immediately.' He ignored her protests and was at the door of the inner office before she could intervene. Rushton was conscious not only of her opposition but of the need to display his mastery of the situation to his colleague.

Peter Nayland was sitting alone in the room behind his desk. He looked both surprised and annoyed when the pair burst into the room with his PA still protesting ineffectually behind them. Chris Rushton waved his warrant card and said, ‘I'm Detective Inspector Rushton and this is Detective Sergeant David. We need to speak with you in connection with the death of Dennis Cooper.'

Nayland glared at him for a moment, then waved his PA away. ‘Make sure we're not disturbed, please. This shouldn't take very long.' He waited until the door was securely closed behind her. Then he looked at Rushton with considerable distaste before transferring his gaze to DS David.

With her ash-blonde hair, green eyes and tall, willowy figure, David complemented the dark-haired Rushton, with his handsome but intense features and his determination to have what he needed from this meeting. Ruth was that object of CID suspicion, a graduate being fast-tracked through the police ranks. But she had proved herself now, and won further credit by electing to stay with John Lambert's team because she felt she was learning fast there. Peter Nayland ran his eyes over her attractive contours and afforded her a broad smile; she reacted with a neutral one of her own which was the product of much practice.

Nayland seated them in the chairs on the opposite side of his desk, sensing that it would be better for him to keep the meeting formal rather than attempt a phoney conviviality. ‘I'm always anxious to help the police, but I can't think that I have anything useful to offer here. Cooper, I think that was the name you mentioned. Isn't he the chap who was murdered at the weekend at Westbourne Park?'

Rushton nodded, like a terrier anxious to get at his food. ‘Cooper died on Sunday night. And you shouldn't try to distance yourself from a death which is eminently convenient for you.'

Nayland looked hard at his adversary, then down at the decorative silver desk-set in front of him, as if he needed some neutral object to control his anger. ‘That phrase “eminently convenient” sounds almost like an accusation, Detective Inspector Rushton. I think you had better explain yourself.'

‘Very well. We have reason to think that you have a close relationship with the wife of the murder victim, Mrs Alison Cooper. Perhaps a close enough relationship for you to wish her husband off the scene.'

Nayland leant forward and fingered the silver top of the inkwell in the desk-set, raising it and letting it drop back with a tiny click. ‘You don't mince matters. But I suppose as a man with a busy day ahead of him I should welcome that. May I ask how you came by this information?'

‘We don't reveal our sources. You must know enough about police procedures by now to be aware of that.'

It was a scarcely veiled insult, but Nayland didn't rise to the bait. ‘My relationship with Alison is a private matter.'

‘Not any more it isn't.' Rushton spoke with some relish. ‘Once you become involved in a murder investigation, very few things remain private.'

‘I'm not involved in this murder.'

‘You are involved in its investigation, I'm afraid. And you will remain so until we are able to eliminate you from all suspicion of either committing the crime or being in any other way involved in it.'

Nayland looked hard at him, then stroked his neatly trimmed moustache. It was a gesture which had become an aid to thought for him, as well as a help in formulating the words he wished to use. He was more and more irritated by this erect, dark-haired young DI, but he knew well that he mustn't descend into anger. There was too much at stake here for that. ‘I can eliminate myself from your enquiries very quickly. I believe this death took place on Sunday evening last. I was in Selly Oak on Sunday evening. Four of us enjoy a poker game once a month. I can give you the address where we met and the names of the people concerned.'

‘We shall take those details in due course. They will not eliminate you from our investigation.'

Peter Nayland raised his well-groomed eyebrows and accorded his adversary a disdainful smile. ‘Really? This begins to sound very like police harassment.'

‘You've been a centre of interest for Birmingham CID officers for several years, as I'm sure you are well aware. You've perpetrated a series of dodgy business deals. You've been involved in drugs, prostitution and wholesale VAT evasions. You use your betting shops and gambling clubs as a means of money laundering. You are suspected of using hit men to eliminate your underworld rivals.'

‘And have I been convicted even once of any of these things? In your own interest, you should be aware of the laws of slander, Detective Inspector Rushton.'

The two were bristling with hostility now, making even formal phrases into instruments of attack. Rushton said evenly, ‘People who behave as if they are above the law sometimes get away with it, for a time. If they are clever, that time may extend to several years. But eventually they overreach themselves and end up with lengthy custodial sentences. Perhaps this crime will prove to be the point where that happens to you.'

‘I've told you where I was on Sunday night. I'd like you to leave now.'

‘And I've no doubt you can produce men to swear you were in Selly Oak at the time Dennis Cooper died. Probably people whom you employ.' The briefest flash of irritation on Nayland's face showed that he had scored a hit. ‘You may even have been exactly where you say you were, ensuring your alibi for the time when you knew this killing was to take place. When you employ a contract killer to eliminate your enemies, that is a prudent thing to do.'

Peter Nayland's smile of contempt was comprehensive. It widened to embrace the man in front of him, the woman at his side, the whole of the police service, the world of law and order beyond it. ‘You're adding the employment of a contract killer to the other crimes you've thrown at me. It's building up into an impressive catalogue. I'm sure some of your superiors would be interested to read the list.'

‘You employed the known hit man George French to kill not one but two men last year. We know that, but the necessary witnesses are much too frightened to come into court and speak against you. You have form, Mr Nayland. It may not yet be official form. It will become that once you overstep the mark and come to court on even one charge. We find rats desert the sinking ship very rapidly in those circumstances.'

DS Ruth David had watched these stags locking horns with interest. Chris Rushton was a quiet man, who sometimes seemed more interested in the efficient documentation of information on his computer than in feeling collars. It was fascinating to see now his real passion in the face of villainy, just as it was to see the veneer of respectable businessman cracking away from Peter Nayland as he was attacked. DS David now said, ‘Mr Nayland, you'd better let me have the details of where you were on Sunday night and the people who were with you.'

‘Certainly, my dear. I'm a cooperative member of the public anxious to give every help to the enforcers of our laws.'

‘And I'm not your dear, but one of those enforcers, Mr Nayland.'

She recorded the names coolly, listening to the heavy breathing of the rival stags in the resulting silence. Then she said, ‘As you would expect, our officers will be speaking to Mrs Cooper about her relationship with you, probably at this very moment. We should like to have your description of that relationship.'