The Murder Line (C.I.D. Room Book 8) Page 3

  Rowan sat down at his desk and stared at the small bundle of mail and the note from the D.I., detailing four witness statements which were to be taken immediately. The intercom buzzed. Fusil, sounding really sharp, reported the finding of the battered body of a man in a field near Awkstreet and ordered two of them to go with him immediately. Rowan carefully didn’t say that only he and Yarrow were present and that Kerr, as was customary, was late.

  They left the station five minutes later, Fusil driving the C.I.D. Hillman. Rowan settled in the back seat and listened to Fusil’s curt recitation of the known facts as he tried not to pay too much attention to the driving, the standard of which varied from bad to dangerous. When Fusil stopped talking, Rowan’s mind flicked back to that morning. He and Heather had gone to bed late, too tired to go on arguing, yet they’d both woken up early and together, probably from some sudden noise outside in the road. He’d suddenly kissed her and she’d responded and before he’d had time to wonder about the possibility of any motive on her part, they’d been making love with a wild, exhilarating abandon. Then at breakfast, when life had been all warm colours, she’d told him she might be late again because there was a photographic session ahead of her that afternoon and that a friend of Mrs. Pritchard’s would be coming in to babysit. He’d asked her to cancel the session but she’d refused and all the old suspicions had flooded back into his mind and then he’d decided he knew her motive for their previous love making. He’d argued furiously with her. Tracy had looked at him in a way that had suddenly made him hate himself.

  Up in the hills, on the north side of the woods, Fusil parked behind a police car, the driver of which came forward. “It’s the far side of this field, sir,” said the P.C. “The farmer says, would we be kind enough to walk round the corn and not through it.”

  “What the hell does he think we are? Dead ignorant?… D’you know if the police surgeon and Dabs have been called out?”

  “They haven’t been, sir. We’ve been waiting for you and we were…”

  “Get on to H.Q. and ask them to get things moving. And tell ’em we’ll get back on to them if we want a pathologist sent out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fusil ordered Yarrow to bring the scene-of-crime suitcase from the boot of the Hillman, then walked past the P.C., who wrinkled his nose at Rowan to express his annoyance at Fusil’s curtness. Rowan shrugged his shoulders and climbed over the padlocked five-bar gate, to follow round the uneven edge of the cornfield. Fusil would certainly never win any popularity contest in the force, yet he had to be respected because he was undeniably a first-class detective. His fault was his sharpness, the way in which he seemed to see crime detection as a direct contest between himself and the criminal rather than a contest between the state and the criminal and himself merely the agent of the state: at times, this confusion led him to go beyond the limits when trying to bring a crime home to the criminal who’d committed it.

  Rowan stumbled over the end of an old furrow which had never been levelled down, instinctively grabbed for support and succeeded only in getting hold of a length of barbed wire which sliced the palm of his left hand. He swore.

  Fusil stopped and turned. “You were never brought up in the country, were you, grabbing hold of barbed wire!”

  Rowan sucked the superficial wound. Fusil said: “Don’t you start chucking blood around everywhere and confusing the issues.”

  “Maybe I’d better hurry back and get the doc to give me an anti-tetanus injection, sir?”

  “You can even report to hospital — provided you do so in your own time.”

  Fusil turned back and continued to walk towards the end of the fence. Rowan followed, not for the first time surprised by the way in which Fusil would suddenly relax just for a while and become friendly and then as abruptly and unpredictably revert to his previous sharpness.

  They could see the body, feet up on the rough verge, from the corner of the field. Around it the wheat was flattened in a rough circle. They approached, Yarrow now trailing them by fifteen feet, and stopped ten yards away.

  The face was towards them, right profile showing, but because of the heavy damage to the skull the features were not immediately distinguishable. That the death was the murder it had been reported was clear, yet still the police surgeon must examine the body first to declare life to be extinct.

  Fusil moved to the right, then said: “A smart dresser: maybe a couple of shades too smart?”

  Rowan agreed. Even as a crumpled up, bloody corpse, it was clear that the dead man had dressed in a manner that, difficult to define yet apparent to sharp eyes, went beyond smartness into ostentatiousness. The check patterning of the suit was a shade too colourful, the shirt and the tie were in too much opposition, the suede shoes too stylish.

  Yarrow, sweating slightly, put down the suitcase. He stared at the body. “A bit of a wide-boy treading too hard on someone else’s shoes?”

  Fusil was satisfied his initial visual inspection was complete. “O.K., take a twenty-five foot circle around the body. Yarrow, get back to my car and call up the station for six P.C.s for the search: tell the patrol car to get on to H.Q. for the pathologist.” As Yarrow left, Fusil said to Rowan: “It’s odds on he reached here by that ride.” He pointed to the six foot gap between a gnarled oak tree and a clump of brambles. “We’ll search up the ride first.”

  Yarrow left, looking annoyed at having to run errands. Fusil, who didn’t give a damn who felt what, took the right-hand side of the body and began to move very slowly towards the woods. Rowan took out a tape from the suitcase and laid this at the twenty-five foot distance Fusil had named, securing it with pegs. Then he followed Fusil, taking the other side of the ride. Could this man have been a seaman, he wondered, as he intently studied the ground. Seamen and trouble went together, like salt and pepper, and the incidence of crime around the docks was enough to give any detective chronic indigestion. Yet the dead man didn’t have the appearance of a seaman, unless he’d been a steward: stewards often dressed too slickly. Perhaps he was just some sort of villain. Dabs would take prints and answer that one.

  The sun came out from behind a rolling cloud of cumulus and something glinted to the right of a large clump of stinging nettles just inside the woods. Rowan went over. An empty coke bottle. Hardly likely to have a bearing on the crime, yet it would have to be noted and checked.

  He continued the close search. He was a good detective, interested in his work, of average, or above average, intelligence. But his domestic problems had come to bear so heavily on him that he often did not work to the best of his ability because he was pessimistically, morosely certain that nothing really mattered that much. He’d tried again and again to jerk himself out of an attitude that even he could recognise was stupid, but with his introspective nature he could never do this for long. He needed nothing so much as a dash of Kerr’s happy-go-lucky attitude towards life.

  Yarrow appeared on the ride. “H.Q.’s acknowledged, sir, and said the surgeon will be here very soon. The duty sergeant’s detailing six men to come out right away.”

  “Right.” Fusil stood upright. “You come in and take over the search this side of the ride. I’ll get back and wait for the doc.” He made certain Yarrow was picking up the search at the right spot, then left.

  Yarrow began to talk as soon as Fusil was out of earshot. “I hope this doesn’t drag on too long. I’ve a date tonight with a real blitzer. Bags of the necessary in the family, a couple of pricy cars in the garage…”

  Had Yarrow even demeaned himself, wondered Rowan, to go out with a girl whose parents weren’t one page from Debrett and so loaded that they thought inflation was something to do with ballooning?

  *

  The organisation had two arms, independent of each other in structure yet at times locking together to function. Titch Jarrold ran the drugs side, Pete Faraday the women. They were in charge of general tactics. They gave orders to the mob or called in outside heavies when they wanted ordinary work
done that couldn’t be traced back to the organisation. Murphy was the strategist, giving Jarrold and Faraday their orders, dealing personally with the Americans, proving his credit-worthiness and his ability to run a line through to England, bargaining with the Chinese suppliers in Hong Kong for shipment of good quality, uncut heroin.

  In any port, prostitution was very paying, but Murphy was determined to make it pay far better than usual by organising it and largely usurping the pimps — though leaving most of the pimps with just enough income to keep them quiet — getting the women to push drugs, and arranging the blackmail of clients rich enough or in positions of authority sufficient to make their blackmail worthwhile.

  Faraday was 35, sharp, ruthless when necessary but otherwise reasonably good humoured, convinced that before very long he would be capable of running his own organisation yet intelligent enough not to imagine there was the slightest chance of doing this by stepping into Murphy’s shoes. He was brashly confident, not yet having discovered that life usually had a cross-eyed joker up its sleeve.

  He went about tracing out a bent, or potentially bendable copper — as he’d been ordered to do — in typical fashion. He visited June and made himself very comfortable in her room, lounging back on the bed and resting his shoes on the cover. “Listen, ducks, I want a lead in on a local copper and I want it fast.”

  “Yeah? Then you ain’t asking for much!” June was considerably older than she admitted to or she looked. She was tough and self-reliant and had never allowed a pimp to control her, but she was also a realist and had quickly understood that when Faraday’s mob had moved in to Fortrow her days of total independence were over. She had agreed without argument to work for them. Faraday had liked her, accurately summed up her character, and now used her as liaison officer for all the other girls on the beats.

  He checked his nails and found them perfectly manicured. He was tall, broad shouldered, and with a rugged handsomeness that the scar to the right of his mouth did nothing to lessen. Since working with Murphy, he’d learned to look after his appearance with taste. His suits were made in London and he commanded respect from doormen, waiters, and anyone else who judged a man by the amount of money he spent on his appearance. He lowered his hand and looked up. “One of the girls must have a copper on her books: the guys are part human.”

  “Haven’t you heard that dogs never foul their own doorsteps, Pete?”

  “Sure, but that’s the smart dogs. Coppers are dumb or they wouldn’t be coppers. So find one who visits a local broad.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  He grinned at her and the scar twisted the right-hand corner of his mouth. “Then we’ll arrange a nice little surprise.” He jerked his thumb towards the tray on the small sideboard. “Get us a drink.”

  She carefully showed no resentment at the way he ordered her around, certain that to do so would merely be to give him a small measure of amusement and satisfaction. She crossed to the tray, poured out a whisky, and handed him the glass.

  He drank. “Some of the coppers must shake a girl or two down each month,” he observed.

  “I’ve never heard so, Pete.” She went back to her chair.

  “There ain’t a police force in the country without someone in it on the make.”

  “But this one’s only a small force and that makes a difference. The coppers all seem straight.”

  “Then they’ve not been offered enough to bend ’em. I’m telling you, I want a bent copper and I want him quick. If it costs a brace of centuries to get him, I’m not shouting.”

  “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” she asked shrewdly.

  His mouth tightened. “Nothing. D’you get it — bloody nothing?”

  “I get it,” she answered.

  He relaxed and grinned. “You’re smart, June.”

  *

  Heather sometimes wondered, fancifully, whether she and Rowan were two magnets who attracted each other but then when close one of them suddenly flipped poles so that they repelled each other with equal force. Looked at dispassionately, it was incredible they could remain in love with each other — which she had no doubts they were — yet have such bitter rows that for a time they hated each other. The big trouble was his jealousy. No woman could stand being constantly accused of being unfaithful. But why did she no longer bother to try to convince him that, no matter what he thought, she’d never been unfaithful to him? Was it because she was subconsciously trying to hurt him as much as his belief she could be unfaithful hurt her? A whacky possibility, yet their relationship was whacky.

  She arrived at Raymond’s home — like Raymond, large, softly centred, too artistic for some tastes with the worst features deliberately picked out and exaggerated — at four-thirty. The three studios were on the ground floor and in the basement and they’d been converted at some vast sum of money which varied in scale every time Raymond gave the details. He was close to being a genius at his own particular speciality, which was endowing women, clothed or unclothed, with personalities which made them memorable. By modern standards his nudes were decorous, yet they were headily voluptuous: his clothed women promised so much, yet without showing an unnecessary square inch of flesh. His work was in great demand, for fashion magazines, for girlie magazines, and as a sophisticated portrait photographer.

  Heather was not surprised to discover that although she was a quarter of an hour late, Raymond had not finished his previous assignment. He was a perfectionist. She sat down in the tiny lounge, artily decorated in vivid, contrasting colours, a painting on the wall that was either an amusing send-up of modern art or potentially valuable, and lit a cigarette. She thought about her first meeting with Raymond. He’d stopped her in the street and she’d thought he was on the prowl and treated him accordingly, even though her immediate reaction had been to label him queer, but he’d ignored her hostility and quickly persuaded her that when he said he wanted to take her photograph, that was what he really wanted to do. He’d taken several photos of her, one Tuesday afternoon, and she’d been astounded to discover how excitingly attractive she could be made to look. He’d offered her work, well paid — incredibly well paid, she’d thought at the time — and she’d agreed. In the intervening two years, she’d revised her opinion of him and now labelled him not queer, but neuter. Which was odd, considering the passion with which he invested his work.

  She’d always liked the luxuries in life, in spite of, or because of, the fact that her parents had never been well off and she’d always had to make do with little. Early married life had been wonderful, but money had been really tight and every penny had had to be watched. Then she’d started earning. At first, Fred had been grateful but a little dubious, certain Raymond must make a pass at her. When her earnings had risen until they were considerably greater than his, gratitude had changed to resentment, and suspicion to certainty, based on nothing which lay outside his own mind. Perhaps after the first real row if she’d chucked the work everything would have been all right. But by then she couldn’t. She was hooked on enjoying the luxuries her money bought. And in any case, be damned to giving way to his absurd jealousy…

  “O.K., darling, let’s get moving. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I’ve been up to my plucked eyebrows in work.” She’d been so deep in thought that he startled her. “In a brown study, are we? Lost to the world and dreaming of nirvana, or some state more earthy? Just go and change, will you, darling, and we’ll positively grind away at our work. Oh, dear, a very infelicitous way of putting things!” He giggled. He had two distinct ways of speaking: usually a flood of words, in deliberate and exaggerated pansy style or, occasionally when working, crisp brevity.

  This was to be a nude session. She left the small sitting room and went into the cubicle in the first studio and there undressed. She walked out; her nudity no more than just another costume to her.

  “I want a really lush one, darling, with your promising more than Helen of Troy even knew about on the day she died — which I hope didn’
t happen in the arms of that boor of a husband of hers: such a waste. It’s for Germany and they’re so particular.” He giggled again. “So difficult to satisfy.” He was on his own, preferring not to have any assistants except when absolutely necessary.

  Working for him was not easy. He made her hold pose after pose, was nit-pickingly sarcastic when she failed to give him exactly what he wanted, and was indifferent to her physical discomfort. Once, in cold weather and with inadequate heating for some unknown reason, she’d had to get under a shower from which only cold water came seventeen times before he’d finished.

  “Come on, darling, that’s just not good enough. You’re not playing Boadicea, staring with sadistic pleasure at all the dead centurions you’ve just chopped up. You’re meant to be the girl we all dream about when no one’s looking. Try to smile… Darling, that’s not a smile, that’s a bloody grimace as the next head rolls down from the guillotine into the pannier. Now, smile, as if Peter Pan were tickling your lovely little backside…” He abruptly changed his manner of speech. “Heather, darling, you’re bloody awful today. What’s the trouble?”

  She relaxed and rubbed her forehead. “I’ve got a bit of a head, Raymond.”

  “Oh, yes.” He didn’t believe her.

  “Look, I’ll be all right now.”

  “We’ll take a break. Would you like something to eat?”

  “No thanks, but I could manage a drink.”

  She went into the cubicle and put on the towelling wrap that was hanging there. When she returned, he had poured her out a Campari, sweet Martini and soda. She clinked her glass with his.

  He sat down, to the right of one of his cameras on leggy tripod, and lit a perfumed cigarette, not bothering to offer her one because he knew she disliked them. He looked at her over his glass. “Now come on, darling, tell uncle what the trouble really is and why you can’t smile as if it’s spring and the sap’s rising?”