‘But an unusual and remote place to meet. Almost as if you wished to keep the assignation a secret one.’
The broad brow furrowed as Sarah O’Connor showed her irritation for the first time. ‘This is like living in a police state. Do I have to account for my every movement?’
‘I’m sorry. I agree this is unusual and I can’t force you to answer. But a murder investigation is by definition unusual. We are usually given a little more latitude, so long as it is clear that we are in pursuit of the truth.’
‘And I would be regarded as obstructive if I chose not to answer your questions. It’s a form of blackmail, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not intended to be. Try to look at it from our point of view. We want to find the truth about everything. Ninety per cent of it will be irrelevant to the enquiry and will be discarded. You can’t expect us to know which ten per cent will be relevant — even crucial.’
Sarah looked at the younger woman, wondering if she was more prepared to accept these explanations from a woman than she would have been from a man. Probably, she thought. She was sure she would have been more brusque with DC Murphy if he’d been offering her these thoughts. She said abruptly, ‘I didn’t initiate that cloak-and-dagger meeting last night. It was Dominic who said when and where he wanted to see me.’
DS Lucy Peach nodded, as if this was exactly what she had expected. ‘And what was the purpose of this conference?’
She took a deep breath and looked at a point on the carpet exactly between her two CID visitors. ‘Dominic thinks he knows who killed Jim. He wanted to check out a few things with me.’
Saturdays are quiet in police stations. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, more now than it has ever been, so the law has to be upheld for seven days a week as well as twenty-four hours a day. But coppers like their weekends as much as other mortals, so that there is but a skeleton staff in the buildings on Saturdays and Sundays, even with a murder investigation in full swing.
The CID section was almost deserted at ten o’clock on this Saturday morning, when Lucy Peach and Brendan Murphy conferred with the man in charge of the investigation and his bagman. There was a little tension between Lucy, who had been at Percy’s side for several years, and Clyde Northcott who had now replaced her. Curiosity rather than tension, Lucy corrected herself; Clyde had been Percy’s best man at their wedding and she had a huge respect for him. So she was merely anxious to see how Clyde was making out. But a small, unworthy part of her did not want him to be successful, did not want him to obliterate the memories of the cases Percy had conducted with her at his side. That was extremely petty, Lucy admitted to herself; perhaps she should get on with creating that baby and making her mother happy.
Percy said with some distaste, ‘There are all sorts of things going on here as well as murder.’ Peach liked things tidy. When you were investigating the most serious crime of all, you should be able to concentrate on it without the distractions of drugs and gambling and prostitution and all the subsidiary violence which accompanies them.
Lucy said, ‘There’s going to be a big case coming up about the procuring of minors for prostitution. Asian men have been raiding council homes in search of defenceless girls. Not just here but all over the north-west. These kids have been subjected to unspeakable degradation and repeated rapes. Our team is assembling more and more evidence. We’ll be ready to present the case within weeks. It could happen now, but we want to get the big boys who are financing this as well as the men who’ve been procuring minors and arranging their clients.’
Percy nodded. ‘The money’s coming from the drug barons. They’re expanding their enterprises, diversifying into other criminal businesses, as if they were legitimate entrepreneurs. They’re dangerous men — and women.’ He couldn’t forget the image of Linda Coleman’s smile as she casually informed him that she knew all about Lucy’s pursuit of the young Pakistanis involved in this.
Clyde Northcott said, ‘All this is muddying the waters around James O’Connor and his death. We know that he was moving further and further into local crime, but he covered his tracks well. He had successful legitimate businesses. His paper mills supply stationery and packing materials to some very big companies, and his betting shops and casinos appear to be perfectly legal earners. But he liked takeovers and it seems he was quite unscrupulous about what he acquired: so long as it was profitable, he was interested.’
Peach nodded. ‘We have to be aware of that, because it is what surrounds our crime. But beyond that, we can be blinkered. Other teams are investigating the prostitution of minors and the sale of illegal drugs. Our concern is to determine who killed James O’Connor. Because there is so much other crime around this, questioning suspects is difficult. Too many of the people our team has spoken to have previous dealings with the police and are determined to reveal as little as possible.’
Lucy said quietly, ‘The victim’s widow says her brother-in-law can help us. She thinks Dominic O’Connor has vital information about James’s death.’
Northcott said, ‘I’ve been trying to contact him all morning, but there’s no reply from his land line and his mobile’s switched off.’
Peach frowned. ‘I think you and I had better get out to his house this afternoon and see what he has to say for himself, Clyde.’
Dominic O’Connor lived on the northern outskirts of the town, not far from the road which ran out into the Ribble Valley and some of the finest country in England. Percy Peach, who had walked and biked through most of the area as boy and youth, was fond of telling anyone who would listen that there was no large town in the two hundred miles between Brunton and Glasgow.
They moved along an unpaved lane, past humble cottages which had been built here around 1850, well before the grander residences which had followed them. The younger O’Connor’s dwelling was a solid detached house, late Victorian or Edwardian, in the smooth red Accrington brick which characterised the best local buildings of that era. It was less grand than the house of his dead elder brother, but it had a splendid view across the valley, over the once busy railway lines to the steep slopes opposite. There the North Lancs golf course, where Percy took his exercise, stretched away towards the wilder moorland beyond.
Percy studied the house and its surroundings for a moment before moving to the blue front door, which was flanked by Yorkshire stone bays. They could hear the bell ringing beyond the door, but no other movement. The house sounded very empty, but he pressed the bell twice more before accepting that it was not going to be answered. A man in the front garden of the adjoining house stopped working his border and leant upon his fork, watching them curiously.
Clyde Northcott went over to the low brick wall between the houses and showed the man his warrant card. ‘We need to speak to Mr Dominic O’Connor. Would you know where he is, sir?’
‘Nope.’ The man seemed to find the negative very satisfying. ‘I ain’t seen ’im today. But I’ve only been here since two. I don’t live here; I’m the gardener.’ He lifted his head to look at the high elevations of the house where he was working, as if that should have been obvious to his enquirer.
‘And have you seen anyone else coming or going from this house whilst you’ve been working?’
Their informant gave the question such consideration that they felt he must surely produce something. But all he said was, ‘No. It’s been very quiet all the time I’ve been here. I’ve been round the back part of the time, but I ain’t seen no one. Lady of the house where you are always speaks to me when she sees me. Pleasant woman, don’t know her name. But I ain’t seen no one today.’ He nodded his satisfaction over this glimpse into his social world, then resumed forking the border.
Peach tried the door to the passage by the side of the garage and found it unlocked. He and Northcott moved cautiously to the back of the house, where there was ample evidence of the era in which it had been built. The house extended a long way back behind the smooth brick of its high frontage. Now that it was obvious that the place was deserted, the two CID men peered through the windows of this rear section of the dwelling. Behind lounge and dining room, there was what had once been called a ‘living kitchen’, with the sort of huge black fire range which Percy’s mother-in-law, Agnes Blake, would have coated with black lead in her youth. The old range, with an oven at one side and its hob for the sooty kettle, had long since been replaced in this residence by an attractive brick fireplace.