‘Is that me or the CID unit as a whole that’s landed you with another murder, sir?’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Peach. I’m not in the mood for it.’
‘Then perhaps you will explain to me how we are responsible for the death of Dominic O’Connor, sir.’
Tucker’s hands rose and fell at his sides. He repeated the gesture, reminding Percy of a portly young blackbird who had but lately left the nest and had not yet learned the full secrets of flight. ‘Detection is not merely about reacting to crime, Peach. You should anticipate things and nip them in the bud.’ His face brightened as a phrase surfaced suddenly in the heaving swamp of his mind. ‘A decent Detective Chief Inspector needs to be proactive, not reactive.’
He drummed his fingers on the shining desert of his desktop to emphasise his point, whilst his junior wondered which management course had provided him with this phrase. Percy’s face brightened as if illuminated by an unexpected gem of thought. ‘Perhaps your comprehensive overview of crime in the area should have revealed the prospect of a second O’Connor killing to us, sir.’ Percy beamed his satisfaction at that idea.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Peach. What is the connection between the killing of these two brothers?’
‘There may not be one, sir.’
‘May not be one? But surely. .’ Tucker passed appealingly into goldfish mode.
‘Or on the other hand, there might.’ Percy nodded gnomically, as if the weight of philosophy involved in this observation pressed heavy upon his noble brow.
‘Now look here, Peach! We need facts, not speculation.’
‘Enquiries are proceeding, sir. I’ve already had the local Catholic priest who claims to be their pastor in here and given him a thorough grilling.’
He forbore to smile at the thought of earnest Father Brice and his genuine desire to help. Tommy Bloody Tucker’s reaction was as predictable as he had expected. ‘You must tread very carefully whenever religion is involved, Peach. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
‘You don’t, sir. The man came here himself. Presented himself for our inspection. A bold move, I think you’ll agree. I wondered if I should give him a bit of the third degree treatment over sexual assaults on minors, in view of his church’s deplorable record over the last few years.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Peach! I expressly forbid it!’
Peach’s face fell as he abandoned his enthusiasm. ‘Very well, sir. I hear you. Perhaps that line of questioning would be better left to you. I’m sure your overview will enable you to put any local clerical assaults in the context of a more national picture.’
‘Who killed Dominic O’Connor, Peach?’
Percy’s eyes widened as his eyebrows rose impossibly high beneath the bald pate. Then he allowed a slow chuckle to spread through his torso. ‘You don’t lose your sense of humour, do you, sir? Enquiries are proceeding, as you would no doubt tell the media. No stone is being left unturned. That is the official line. In private police parlance, I haven’t a fucking clue, sir. Not as yet.’
Percy didn’t swear anything like as often as most modern police officers, male or female. But he found as he descended the stairs that this particular lapse had given him disproportionate pleasure.
What DCI Peach had said to his chief was quite true: he didn’t yet know whether the deaths of the two O’Connor brothers were connected. It seemed an almost impossible coincidence that they wouldn’t be, but what he had heard from Dominic O’Connor’s PA and from Father Brice suggested that the second death might be a more complex mystery than the first one had proved.
Clyde Northcott still hoped the same man might have dispatched both brothers. He voiced that thought as they journeyed to Strangeways to interview Peter Coleman, who had been remanded in custody after being charged with the murder of James O’Connor. ‘Let’s hope it’s him. Be nice and simple, that would. Help our clear-up rates. It would even please Tommy Bloody Tucker.’
‘There’s no pleasing Tommy Bloody Tucker,’ said Peach gloomily. ‘You might as well try to please a camel with indigestion. But I know what you mean. It would make life a lot simpler if we could get Coleman to admit this one as well and save us chasing our tails around.’
Peter Coleman looked a different proposition from the truculent hard man they had seen when they’d interviewed him three days earlier. He’d been confident then, defying them to arrest him; now he looked every inch the criminal he was. The warder set him in his chair and stood impassively behind his man, but there seemed little chance now of this powerfully built man offering any physical aggression. His hair was cut close, emphasising the size of his head and his neck, but the anonymous prison garb made him look smaller and less formidable than when they had confronted him in the hut on the building site.
When Peach did not speak but merely stared at him and assessed him, Coleman could not withstand the silence. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you, Peach. I’ll deal with you when I get out of here.’
‘We could both be old men by then. DS Northcott might still enjoy knocking you about, though. He might still be a hard bastard, if he keeps himself in trim.’ He glanced appreciatively at the formidable black presence beside him.
‘I’ve got a good lawyer, Peach. We’ll see you in the Crown Court.’
Peach’s grin suffused his whole countenance, a frightening sight for any criminal, let alone one accused of the most serious crime of all. ‘I shall look forward to it. Especially as we have witnesses and evidence that are proof against even the best defence counsel. When he sees the prosecution case, he’ll be telling you to plead guilty and scratch together some sort of mitigating circumstance — though what that might be, I can’t imagine.’ He hit Coleman with the confident smile of a man with three aces in his hand and a spare one up his sleeve.
‘It’s circumstantial. It won’t stand up. Not when Patterson gets to work on it.’ He threw in the name of the man who had conducted numerous complex and lucrative defence cases over the last ten years. Then he tried to trump Peach’s smile with one of his own. In that contest, he failed abjectly, as many had done before him.
Percy said abruptly. ‘You were seen parking your car and slipping over the wall of Claughton Towers twenty minutes before the killing. You were seen scrambling into it and driving away five minutes after it. You were in charge of Lennon’s muscle and you’re known to have killed before. We’ll produce people who worked for you to send you down. Rats desert sinking ships very fast, Pete. You’ll go down on the vermin vote.’
‘We’ll bloody see about that,’ said Coleman. But it was a ritual defiance. His voice carried no conviction and his coarse face was pale.
Peach judged that he’d done enough softening up to move now to the reason for their visit. ‘We’re here about your second murder. When we add the death of Dominic O’Connor to that of James, they’ll be able to throw away the key.’
‘I didn’t kill Dominic. You’re not pinning that one on me.’
‘Be easy to do that, I should think, after they’ve nailed you for Jim. Jury’s going to be well set to have you for Dominic as well, after they’ve heard about Jim.’
‘But I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have done it. Your lot arrested me on Saturday. Burst in on me whilst I was still in bed with Linda, the way you pigs like to do. Your boss was telling anyone who’d listen that you’d arrested me for murder by Saturday lunch time.’
‘Heard about that, have you? He does a good line in boasting, our boss does.’ Peach’s voice hardened. ‘But it doesn’t get you off the hook, Pete boy. Dominic O’Connor was murdered on Friday night, when you were still at large and obeying your latest orders.’
‘But I didn’t do it. What happened to innocent until proved guilty, Peach?’
‘Nothing at all, Pete boy. It remains a basic principle of the English law. And an admirable one, no doubt about that, despite what frustrated coppers might say. But it doesn’t always operate in practice. I’m no lawyer, thank God, but my guess is that when we’ve got you banged to rights for one murder, the jury and everyone else in court will be more inclined to think you guilty of another. Especially when they’re looking at a man who’s made his living by violence for years, like you.’ Percy nodded two or three times, then let a smile steal slowly over his round face at his happiness in that thought.