DS Northcott never looked very happy in armchairs. His tall, lean frame seemed made for more active things. He now said, ‘It’s good that you’re being so frank, Mr Jacobs. Perhaps you’d care to be equally frank about your criminal record and the nature of your dispute with the late Dominic O’Connor.’
Brian Jacobs had been concentrating on the round, inquisitive face of DCI Peach. He switched to the very different countenance of the detective sergeant and tried to keep calm. ‘It is a long time since anyone has mentioned my criminal record. I doubt if any of my present acquaintances knows about it.’
‘And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t remain that way — unless of course it turns out to have a bearing on this case.’
‘I can assure you that it doesn’t. But you’re policemen: you won’t accept statements like that.’
Peach gave the blandest of his many smiles. ‘Unless someone is kind enough to confess to us that he killed Dominic O’Connor, we can’t do that. I’m glad you understand the situation. You must have had a good lawyer in 1989.’
‘I did. My father saw to that.’
‘Affray and assault with a knife. Very serious charges.’
‘With mitigating circumstances.’
‘As there always are, in the view of defence counsels. We only have the bare facts of the case in our files. It seemed when I read those that you were lucky that you hadn’t killed the man. You wouldn’t have got away so lightly on a manslaughter charge.’
‘I was attacked. Or rather we were attacked. I was part of a group.’
‘Yes. The only member of the gang who was carrying a knife. Which meant that you’d gone there prepared for serious violence.’
‘We were attacked. We defended ourselves.’
‘That’s not what the witnesses said. Not the majority of them. Especially the ones who knew you best — they said you went there nursing a grudge and were bent on revenge.’
‘This is irrelevant to your present enquiries. It’s all a long time ago. I’m a very different man now.’ Jacobs looked round the pleasant, well-lit office with its expensive furnishings, as if they should take that as evidence of the difference.
‘Perhaps. There is a saying about leopards and spots. It’s very popular in the police service.’
‘I expect it is. You don’t believe people can change.’
‘We’re always happy when they do, providing it’s for the better. We have to pay attention to the statistics of crime, which show us that the overwhelming majority of serious offences are perpetrated by people who have committed crimes before.’
‘Well, I’m happy to tell you I’m one of the reformed sinners. I learned my lesson. That knife incident is ancient history.’
‘I see. I believe the judge said in his summing up that you had a violent temperament which could be your downfall. Temperaments rarely change. Yours meant in 1989 that you retained grudges and tried to get revenge by violent action. Would you say you still have that same temperament, Mr Jacobs?’
Brian Jacobs gripped the arms of his chair very hard. He could feel a vein pulsing in his temple; he wondered if it was visible to this man who was so calmly baiting him. ‘I didn’t expect something which happened when I was twenty-two to pursue me through life. I am an accountant: we’re hardly noted for fisticuffs, let alone murder! I’m sure the people who work with me would regard it as ludicrous that you should even be questioning me like this.’
‘What happened between you and Dominic O’Connor?’
‘He made out that I’d been dishonest. He told the Managing Director that I’d been cheating the firm.’
‘And had you?’
Jacobs glared at Peach, who did not drop his eyes or move a muscle in his face. ‘No, of course I hadn’t. But even the whiff of corruption is enough to finish you, when your business is finance. In effect, it was his word against mine. He was younger and he’d made himself the owners’ blue-eyed boy. I got out and made a fresh start. It tore me apart at the time, but it was the right decision.’
‘The people who worked with you at Morton Industries remember you as feeling very bitter against a man who is now dead. I believe you threatened him with violence.’
Jacobs was silent for so long that Peach thought he was not going to react. Then he said evenly, ‘I told Dominic O’Connor at the time that he wouldn’t get away with what he’d done. I told him that, however long it took, he was going to suffer the consequences.’
‘Thank you. Perhaps you can now understand our line of questioning.’
‘What I said to Dominic O’Connor four years ago was rhetorical. It was said in a red mist of fury. I don’t think he felt threatened by it.’
‘I would have done, if it had come from a man who’d previously almost killed an enemy with a knife.’
Jacobs’ nostrils flared and his face reddened beneath his floppy dark hair, but his voice remained controlled. It was a strangely disturbing combination. ‘I’m no longer violent. You may not wish to believe that, so consider what I had at stake. Common sense would argue against me taking retribution now, however much I might desire it. I’ve got too much to lose.’
‘That is a convincing argument, here in your office. But logic doesn’t always win, when passion takes over. Where were you on Friday night, Mr Jacobs?’
He was shaken anew by the sudden question. He ran a hand quickly through his hair, making it look even more out of control. Then his face brightened. ‘I left work early and went and played a round of golf at Brunton Golf Club.’
Tommy Bloody Tucker’s club. Peach didn’t ask if Jacobs knew the superintendent; you shouldn’t allow yourself to be prejudiced against any suspect. ‘What time did you finish your game?’
‘It was a four-ball. It would be around six when we finished, I suppose. Then we had a round of drinks.’
Clyde Northcott recorded the names of Jacobs’ three companions in his notebook and they watched their man relaxing in his chair. Then Peach said, ‘What time did you get home in the evening, Mr Jacobs?’
He was suddenly tense again. ‘That’s when he died, isn’t it?’
‘That seems the most probable time at the moment, yes. We’d like to know when you left the golf club and when you arrived home.’
In case there is too long an interval between the two, he thought. Dominic O’Connor’s house was only a couple of miles off his route and they must surely know that. ‘I can’t be certain of the times. I didn’t know then that I was going to be questioned about them by a DCI, did I? Most people left the golf club before us, apart from a party who were eating there. I think I left at about half past seven, but I couldn’t be precise. I’m pretty certain I was home by eight o’clock.’ He tried to banish the graveness from his face with a smile, but didn’t succeed. ‘And I didn’t kill Dominic O’Connor on the way!’
‘So who do you think did kill him? If you’re innocent, it’s obviously in your interest to give us your thoughts on the matter.’
‘I agree. But I can’t help you. I’ve not been in close touch with him for the last four years.’
It was over, at last. They left him with a card, so that he could contact them if he thought of anything useful. He shut the door behind them and went and went slowly back to sit behind his desk, staring for several minutes at the chairs the CID men had lately occupied.
The young officer was studiously incurious about Colin Davies. It wasn’t her business to size him up. She was waiting at the station sergeant’s reception desk and she ushered the visitor swiftly through the labyrinth of the CID section and into DCI Peach’s office. ‘Mr Davies to see you, sir,’ she said stiffly, and then was gone.
Peach rose and shook the man’s hand, noting a firm, sinewy grip and a few grey hairs in his visitor’s short-cut crown. Probably mid-fifties, Percy thought, but fit for his age and without an ounce of surplus fat. One of those enviable men who would be the same weight when he was sixty as he had been when he was sixteen. Percy said, ‘This is Detective Sergeant Northcott, who will be as interested as I am in whatever you have to say.’