Merely Players (28 page)

The old man's lips set in sullen rejection. Luke was reminded against his will of Shakespeare's seven ages of man. Harry was now at the ‘lean and slipper'd pantaloon' stage, querulous of aid and sullenly rejecting all argument. Luke wasn't sure he could cope with that final stage, the one the remorseless Shakespearean eye saw as:

‘Second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.'

Would it come to that? In the years to come, would he still be able to remember that other man, who had swung young Luke high above his head on summer walks, who had taught him marbles and football and how to catch a cricket ball? Would this earlier and happier image survive after Harry was reduced to that living death where he did not even recognize the people who loved him?

Perhaps he shouldn't keep insisting that the old man should eat.

‘You can take the lead in this one,' said Peach. ‘It was your snout who gave us the information. You're the sort of hard bastard who might frighten even a wrong'un like Tony Valento.'

Coming from Percy Peach, that was probably a sort of compliment, Clyde Northcott told himself. Or at any rate the nearest thing to a compliment he was likely to get.

‘CID. Mr Valento is expecting us,' Clyde said to the PA who rose to greet them. He waved his warrant card under her nose and was at her boss's door whilst Peach was still visiting his most cheerful smile upon the bewildered lady.

Perhaps Cassidy's ex-agent had always intended to be aggressive, or perhaps he decided to meet fire with fire. Either way, it was a mistake.

‘I won't ask you to sit down, because I don't expect you to be here long,' Tony Valento said.

He was a large, formidably muscled man, but at fifty he was running a little to fat. Clyde Northcott advanced so quickly upon him that he recoiled a pace backwards. Unexpectedly, Northcott's formidable features formed a smile, but it was plainly a smile of contempt at his quarry's retreat. ‘We're busy people, Mr Valento. We don't intend wasting much time with the likes of you. The question is whether we depart here as the twosome who came to question you or as a trio, with you in handcuffs.' There was no doubt from the set of the ebony features which alternative DS Northcott would prefer.

Like most men who employ serious muscle to do their dirty work for them, Valento was a coward at heart. It was also many years since he had felt himself threatened with physical violence. He told himself that the British police couldn't beat people up, that the whole weight of the law was nowadays against it. But with Northcott's face three inches higher than his and only a foot away, he wasn't convinced of that. He said, ‘There's really no need for this attitude, you know. I've nothing to hide from you. Perhaps after all we'd better sit down.'

He sank into the chair behind his desk. DCI Peach, who had witnessed the exchanges so far with the delight of a sadist in a ringside seat, dusted the immaculate leather of the indicated chair with the flat of his hand, sat down, and crossed his legs to await further developments. Only when he saw both of them sitting did Clyde Northcott accept the third chair in the room. He did so with obvious reluctance, sitting on the front of it, testing it for size, then pulling it forward to the very edge of the desk, so that his uncompromising features were still within three feet of his prey. He evinced every intention of leaping across those three feet, if he did not receive the responses he required from the hapless occupant of this room.

In his apprehension, Valento made the mistake of looking towards Percy Peach for some sort of relief, an error which would have been scarcely credible to the Brunton criminal fraternity. But this was Manchester, and a man not used to Peach's idiosyncrasies. Valento felt an irresistible need to break the silence. ‘I've nothing to hide. You've got nothing on me.'

Clyde Northcott paused briefly to examine his immaculate nails and fingers, as if indicating what a shame it would be to contaminate them by violent contact with this recalcitrant subject. ‘Lies, Mr Valento, lies. I thought we were agreed that we weren't going to waste time on this?'

‘I didn't kill that bastard Cassidy and there's no way you're going to pin it on me.'

‘You hired someone to kill him. You don't sully your delicate paws with the nasty stuff.' Clyde looked at the rather pudgy hands in question with some distaste and saw them instantly withdrawn from the top of the desk.

Valento licked his lips, made himself look into the stern black face, and said, ‘Prove it! Prove your bloody fantasy or take it back!'

Clyde took his time over his trump card, allowing himself a smile, savouring the apprehension he could scent like a raw stink around the man opposite him.

‘Charlie Ford.'

‘Never heard of him.' But Tony Valento was not a good liar once he was frightened. The phrase carried no conviction.

‘You've used him in the past. Used him as a hit man to eliminate Dangerous Dave Wall four years ago.'

‘That was never proved.'

‘Precisely. The first time we can agree on something, Mr Valento. You were never charged, because the Crown Prosecution Service did not have the proof to bring you to court. But they and everyone else involved knew exactly what had happened. We still have the details. Perhaps Mr Ford will give us the proof in the Dangerous Dave case as a bargaining plea, when we arrest him on this one.'

‘This is harassment. You've no more proof now than you had then.'

‘Three thousand pounds, Mr Valento.'

‘What?'

‘That is the sum you paid to Charlie Ford on Wednesday December the eleventh. Two days before Charlie fulfilled the contract and blew Adam Cassidy out of your life.'

‘Who told you this?'

‘Manchester CID keep tabs on Charlie Ford. It takes time, but we get contract killers in the end, you see.' You protected your snouts at all costs; Clyde was determined that this should never be traced back to the hapless Delroy Flecker. ‘You should have chosen a different hit man for this killing, you see. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not?'

‘Three thousand isn't the price to kill a man.'

‘Know all about that, do you?'

‘I listen around. You pick these things up.'

‘Indeed you do. And we do as well, Mr Valento. We know just as well as you do that three thousand is a deposit. A down payment, with the rest of the price to be paid on completion. Another seven thousand or so. When did you deliver that to Charlie Ford?'

‘I didn't. He didn't kill Adam Cassidy.' But Valento was staring hard at his desk now, unable to look into the wide dark eyes which seemed to move ever nearer to him.

Peach had taken an undisguised pleasure in the exchange so far. He now spoke for the first time, saying quietly, ‘Much better to tell us now, Tony. Unless you want to run the risk of Charlie Ford turning Queen's evidence and sliding you into a high-security cell beside him.'

‘Charlie Ford didn't kill Adam Cassidy.' Valento's dull tone made him sound as if he did not expect to be believed.

Peach raised his eyebrows high and smiled at the same time, a phenomenon which was a new horror for the man on the other side of the desk. ‘You're saying Ford didn't deliver on the contract you'd taken out with him? It's a sad thing, when there isn't even honour among thieves.'

‘I'm saying nothing.'

‘Much the best policy, in your place. Don't think it will save you, though.'

‘Charlie Ford didn't kill Adam Cassidy.'

‘And how would you know that, Mr Valento?'

He shook his head, as if he could not think straight in the face of this joint attack. ‘I'm saying nothing. I want a brief before I say anything else.'

‘Very wise, that. Feels to me as though you're slamming the stable door long after the contract killer has bolted, but we're just simple policemen. Don't leave the area without letting us know all about it, will you, Tony? I think we'd better leave it there, DS Northcott. For the moment, that is.'

Throughout his exchanges with Peach, Clyde Northcott had continued to eye Valento like a Rottweiler who has discovered an unexpectedly juicy bone. He now rose with every sign of reluctance, keeping his dark brown eyes unblinkingly upon Valento as he backed reluctantly towards the door.

The two had climbed into the police car before Peach said, ‘I thought you did quite well in there, Clyde. You probably went a bit too soft on the bugger, but that will be the effect of working with me and my peaceful pussycat nature.'

EIGHTEEN

T
he children were excited as they came out of the village school. They had finished for the Christmas break and they carried Christmas cards for their parents. These exhibited the usual wide range of childish expertise, but they had been compiled with a universal degree of enthusiasm and were received accordingly by the parents at the gates.

Jane Cassidy was a little apprehensive about the names on the trophies which six-year-old Damon and four-year-old Kate would brandish, but she need not have feared. A thoughtful teacher had ensured that only ‘Mummy' was afforded the Christmas greeting, that only ‘Mummy' featured in the garishly coloured portraits within. Five yards away from them, eight-year-old Thomas Barnes was presenting a relatively much more sophisticated effort to his duly grateful father.

‘Have you a few minutes to spare, Paul?' asked Jane, conscious of the eager adult ears around them and trying to sound casual. ‘If you have, I'd like your advice on our new lawn. An awful lot of moss seems to have appeared since winter arrived.'

Barnes glanced ostentatiously at his watch. ‘I'm sure I can fit that in. I'll have a look at the moss, certainly, but you're probably better to leave any treatment until the spring.'

His response had sounded stagey and contrived, thought Jane. But he wasn't an actor like her, and she found she delighted in the clumsiness of his effort. When you loved someone, even their weaknesses were attractive to you. Or perhaps she just loved the things in him which were so completely different from the life she had previously known. It was reassuring to see his Land Rover following her car up the narrow lane towards her house.

In a few months, they wouldn't need to play these games at the school gates, but for the present it was better not to provide scandal for the gossips. Once the folk round here had got used to the fact of Adam's death, it would seem only natural for two lonely people like her and Paul to be drawn together. She suspected she would always be an exotic creature from the outside as far as these likeable, conservative country folk were concerned. But she would rather be seen as someone who had opted for the rural life with Paul than a scarlet woman with predatory sexual appetites.

They took the children into the playroom. Both of them were pleased to see how Thomas enjoyed his role as the senior and treated little Kate as if she were a fragile piece of human china, rather than the boisterous four-year-old tomboy Jane saw most of the time. She shut the door soundlessly upon the three and flung herself impulsively into Paul's arms. ‘I needed that!' she said, when they separated lips and limbs a full minute later.

Paul Barnes nodded, smiled, but was unable to delay his need for information any longer. ‘Tell me about last night!'

‘It was OK, I think. The CID are still treating me with kid gloves, but they managed to ask about everything they want to know.'

‘What about us?'

‘They made me tell them about Friday night. I made it so that they had to worm it out of me. I told them I'd come to you. That we'd been together through the evening.' His tenseness had got through to her. She found herself speaking in terse phrases, wanting to get out what she had to tell him as quickly as possible.

‘Didn't they want to know why you hadn't told them that at first? Why you'd changed your story?'

‘I think they accepted that it would have been embarrassing for me to confess that I'd been with another man when Adam died. When they saw me this time, they'd already questioned you and found out that there was something between us. If I'd tried to brazen it out and say I'd been here all through last Friday night, they wouldn't have believed me anyway, would they? They don't say much, but I think they just accepted that I was now telling them the truth.'

‘Good.' He glanced at the clock on the wall in the kitchen where they were speaking. ‘I'd better collect Thomas and be on my way. It's best that we keep things as low-key as possible as far as the public are concerned.'

Hazel Cassidy studied her husband's grey face anxiously. Luke looked exhausted; she felt a sudden, overwhelming surge of tenderness for him. ‘I can't think they'll have much to say to you. I've already told the young policewoman who took my statement that I sent you out to the pub last Friday. I'll talk to them with you, if you like.' Adam Cassidy had given Luke quite enough trouble when he was alive. It was cruel that even after his death he should be bringing them problems.

‘No. I'll take them into the front room. Where are the children?'

‘Upstairs in their rooms. No homework now that they've finished for Christmas. No doubt they're texting their friends with a view to festive mayhem!' In the moment of silence which followed, they could hear the steady, muted bass rhythms which constituted the inevitable background to most teenage activities.

‘Make sure they don't interrupt us in the front room. It shouldn't take long, as you say.' It was suddenly very important to Luke Cassidy that neither his wife nor his children should be involved in his exchanges with CID; he didn't want them contaminated by any such contact. He went into the front room and sat nervously watching the clock, trying in vain to get his tired brain to work out tactics for this meeting.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when he answered the door and showed DCI Peach and DS Northcott into the front room. At the end of what had presumably been a long day for them, neither of them looked at all tired. Indeed, Peach, looking curiously round what was obviously a little-used dining room, seemed positively eager to engage with him. Luke felt resentful of the man already, in view of his own weariness.