‘Stalling exercise, as you well know, Peach. The official bullshit for “We haven’t got anywhere yet, but we’re trying”.’
‘Yes, sir. Fair summary. Surprisingly percipient of you, sir.’
Tucker couldn’t remember anyone calling him percipient before, but he supposed it was a compliment. ‘Don’t try to bullshit me, Peach! I handed this investigation over to you with a brisk start made and house-to-house enquiries already under way. I want to know what progress you’ve made.’
‘A brisk start? I see, sir. Well, I’m afraid the house-to-house has produced nothing. There aren’t too many houses around Claughton Towers and their occupants tend to be safely indoors during the hours of darkness.’
Tommy Bloody Tucker ignored this, as he ignored most things which made unpleasant hearing. ‘You have a huge team on this, Peach. I expect results. Jim O’Connor was a well-known and popular figure because of his rugby past. He was also a successful local businessman. This is a high-profile case. I’m having to hold radio and television at bay, as well as the press. I need something to feed to them.’
‘You could tell them that O’Connor was under investigation by the Inland Revenue for tax evasion and by the Drug Squad for supplying and selling illegal substances, sir.’
‘I can’t go saying things like that about a murder victim. It wouldn’t be good PR. You don’t understand the importance of our image among the public, Peach.’
‘No, sir. I’m more concerned with putting villains behind bars, sir.’
‘Don’t take that line with me, Peach. It won’t work.’
Percy reflected that putting away criminals was hardly a controversial line, save in the strange world of Tommy Bloody Tucker. ‘The wife wasn’t able to provide us with anything useful, sir. It’s my view that Sarah O’Connor isn’t grief-stricken by this death, but I could be wrong.’
‘Ah! You may have stumbled upon something vital here, Peach. A woman could have done this, you know. It takes no great strength to pull the trigger on a pistol.’
‘Yes, sir. That thought had occurred to me. I think DS Northcott is aware of it, also.’
‘Bear it in mind, that’s all. You can’t trust women, you know.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve become aware of that, during my twenty years of service. However, not many of them possess Smith amp; Wesson revolvers which can blow a man’s head to bits. Nevertheless, it seems there were several such weapons around O’Connor and his henchmen. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for his wife to get her hands on one, if she had a mind to murder her man. So far, we have no evidence that she had.’
‘The press are beginning to moan about our failure to protect the public. You know the kind of stuff — anarchy is stalking our streets unchecked, that sort of thing.’
‘I do sir, yes.’ For a tiny moment, these two very different men were united in the face of an unfeeling media. Then Peach said, ‘O’Connor employed his own muscle. It didn’t protect him very well, did it?’
‘His own muscle?’ Tucker did his goldfish impression, but on this occasion it merely irritated Percy.
‘I interviewed a man called Steve Tracey this morning, sir. He’s been in charge of Jim O’Connor’s security for the last four years.’
‘Security?’
‘It’s the current euphemism for enforcers, sir. Tracey and his men beat up people who tried to obstruct O’Connor’s activities.’
‘That’s illegal, Peach.’
‘Your grasp of technicalities is as accurate as ever, sir. The problem is that we can never get witnesses to speak up in court, sir. There have been some bad beatings, but the victims aren’t prepared to stand in the witness box and point out the people who put them in hospital.’
‘This man Tracey sounds like a dangerous man, Peach. You should regard him as a serious candidate for this crime.’
‘Thank you, sir. Your overview of the crime scene in our area is as useful as it ever was.’
Tucker looked at him suspiciously over his rimless glasses. ‘There were a lot of people at that dinner, Peach.’
‘Sixty-two, sir. No doubt you considered that, before you decided to dismiss them to their homes on Monday night.’
Tucker decided to ignore this; he had long ago developed a deaf ear to turn towards unpleasant facts. ‘There must be other possibilities as well as the two you’ve mentioned. I learned long ago that one mustn’t jump to conclusions when engaged on a murder investigation.’
‘Another penetrating finding for your juniors, sir. We haven’t ruled out the idea that this may still be a domestic.’
Tucker stroked his chin judiciously. It was a gesture he’d worked on over the last couple of years. He felt it gave him gravitas when speaking to television presenters. ‘That seems unlikely to me, Peach. But I suppose you know your own business best.’
‘Very gracious of you, sir, I’m sure. The victim has a younger brother — six years younger. His name is Dominic O’Connor and he didn’t approve of the victim’s lifestyle. He called his brother a “chancer”, which he undoubtedly was. That and much more. I think Dominic had a much clearer idea of James’s businesses and the way he ran them than he cares to admit. That doesn’t mean he had anything to do with his death, of course.’
‘Indeed it doesn’t. Dominic O’Connor is also a successful local businessman. He could do us a lot of damage if we offend him.’
‘Even if he should turn out to be a serious criminal, sir?’
‘No, of course not. But you’d better be damned sure he’s broken the law before you move against him, or you’ll have me to deal with.’ Tucker jutted the chin which he had lately stroked in what he had decided from ancient photographs was his Churchillian mode.
‘Very well, sir. Just for the record, I have no reason to think at this point that Dominic O’Connor is anything other than the most upright of citizens.’
Peach thought as he descended the stairs from Tommy Bloody Tucker’s penthouse office that life dealt the cards in a very random fashion. Simply because of the insufferable T.B. Tucker, he would now be delighted if he could dig some dirt on the unsuspecting Dominic O’Connor.
SEVEN
You wore plain clothes when you joined the exalted ranks of the CID. It was supposed to make you less conspicuous. In some cases the idea didn’t work. One of these cases was Detective Sergeant Clyde Northcott.
When you were a lean six feet three inches and very black, people tended to remember you, whatever you wore. Most of the time Clyde didn’t mind that. His formidable physical presence made him feared. Clyde had grown used to that and secretly rather enjoyed it. He’d learned to survive in a harsh world before he became a policeman and it pleased him that people were nervous about what he might do to them. The police rules were strict and Clyde observed them. But people didn’t always know that, did they? There was nothing wrong with a little bluff, if it produced the right results. The fact that DCI Peach referred to his sidekick as a ‘hard bastard’ whenever the opportunity arose also pleased Clyde, who played up to the image whenever he felt it useful to him.
But you couldn’t be at once a hard bastard and unnoticeable, as the job sometimes demanded you should be. When Clyde Northcott spotted something which interested him on that Thursday evening, he slid swiftly behind the wheel of his car. You weren’t as obvious in a car, especially when it was a routine silver Ford Focus. You might need to slide the driver’s seat as far back as it would go, but six and a quarter feet of muscle and bone was still less noticeable in a vehicle than on the street.
Clyde hesitated about what to do next, because he’d had a hard and boring day which hadn’t produced anything significant. Days like that were always the worst; he didn’t notice the time passing or count the hours he was putting in when there was progress. But when you spent long hours getting nowhere, you always ended up fatigued as well as frustrated. He wondered for a moment whether he should follow the woman or not, then decided with a sigh that he would need to postpone his takeaway and his tin of lager.