Merely Players (25 page)

‘How are the children coping with this?'

‘Very well. We had a nasty incident on Monday when a press photographer turned up as they were coming out of school – hoping to get a shot of grieving widow and children together, I suppose. The rest of the parents were pretty angry about it. But the headmistress told me how resilient children are and she was right. They've chatted to me at nights, as you'd expect, but they seem to have taken it pretty well. It's proved to be a blessing in disguise that they'd seen so little of Adam in the months before his death.'

‘Yes. You mentioned that on Monday. Has that been a help to you as well?'

It was startlingly direct after the preliminary fencing. Jane tried not to be affected by the way the man's black pupils never seemed to leave her face. ‘I suppose it has, really. The manner of the death was an awful shock, but the fact that we've almost led separate lives in the last year or so must have been a help, I suppose.'

She seemed to be inviting him to push this further, almost willing him to press for details of her own life. Instead, he said, ‘Would you care to tell us more about the people Adam associated with during the last year of his life?'

‘I told you almost as much as I know on Monday. I'd seen very little of him during the filming of the latest
Call Alec Dawson
series. I'm sure Adam wasn't lonely when he wasn't on the set. He never had to work hard to get women. Once you achieve fame, it's easier than ever. It's the way the world works, as I'm sure you must be aware.'

Peach nodded, enjoying as he always did the challenge of a woman who wished to meet him head on rather than retreat into the conventional banalities. ‘You don't seem to be very resentful about that.'

‘It was a fact of life if you chose to live with Adam. If he went beyond a certain point with other women, he knew I wouldn't tolerate it.'

‘You must have been lonely whilst he was so busy. You were at home with two children in this beautiful but rather isolated setting.'

‘I'm lucky. We could afford whatever help we needed. The nanny in particular has given me independence and freedom. As I say, I was doubtful whether we needed her at first, but Ingrid is a friend as well as an employee now.'

‘And her presence has allowed you to make your own friendships.'

He had the feeling that she was gently contesting the control of the interview with him. She paused, then said, ‘You must have some particular friendship in mind.'

This time it was Peach who allowed himself the small, enigmatic smile which was a replica of hers. ‘Two of our DCs talked to a Mr Paul Barnes this morning. DC Brendan Murphy is very keen. He has his own version of shorthand, which enables him to keep a very full record of his interviews.'

‘How enterprising of him! And for some reason you obviously find that significant.'

‘I was struck by one thing in his report. When you were mentioned, Mr Barnes denied more than a casual friendship at the school gates. But he knew the names of both of your children. In my experience, other women might know those names, but very few men would remember such details, from the casual and surface acquaintance he claimed.'

‘Very perceptive of you. I hardly think you could make it stand up in a court of law.'

‘I'm sure I couldn't. But fortunately, I am not in a court of law, but discussing these things informally with a woman who is anxious to give every assistance to police enquiries.'

‘Of course you are.' She offered them more cake, refilled Northcott's cup for him; the delicate china seemed ridiculously fragile in those large, careful hands. Having given herself time to think, she said, ‘You're right, of course. I should have known we couldn't conceal it, but Paul was anxious to protect my reputation. Paul and I did meet at the school gates, exactly as you've heard. But I was lonely, as you've suggested, and Paul is divorced, with custody of his son. The friendship grew rapidly. For the last three months, we've been lovers. I told you how convenient it is to have a nanny!'

It seemed characteristic of this very direct woman that once she had made up her mind to tell them, she not only gave them the full details but made a sharp joke against herself. Peach said, ‘You should have told us this on Monday, Mrs Cassidy. But better late than never.'

‘I'm sorry. You can appreciate that we didn't fancy being the subject of everyone's gossip. But you did say there couldn't be secrets, when murder was the crime.'

Peach looked at her grimly for a moment; he couldn't condone concealing facts, however understandable the wish for privacy might be. ‘I think we'd better have anything else you were holding back from us, hadn't we?'

‘I don't think there is anything else. I was genuinely upset on Monday, whatever you might think: I loved Adam, however confused my feelings might have been about him at the time of his death. Perhaps if you recall to me whatever it is that is puzzling you, I can confirm or deny it for you.'

Peach looked at her steadily for a moment, then gave the briefest of nods to his companion, who already had his notes ready to hand. Northcott's calm, deep voice said, ‘You told us that on Friday night you came back into this house after waving goodbye to your husband at about seven thirty and did not leave it again. Your nanny, Ingrid Lundberg, has confirmed that. Would you like to assure us now that you did not leave your house again?'

That small, involuntary smile flashed quickly across the light-skinned face. She took a deep, measured breath. ‘Ingrid is very loyal; I think she would say whatever I wanted her to. But I don't think she lied to you: she no doubt believed I was here, particularly when she was told that that was what I had said. Her room is at the other end of the house from the garage; she probably didn't hear me driving out.'

Clyde Northcott's ebony features showed no sign of surprise. ‘What time would this be?'

‘The children were already in their pyjamas when they waved goodbye to their daddy. I saw them into bed and left Ingrid to read their stories. I must have been away by quarter to eight, or ten to eight at the latest.'

‘And where did you go?'

‘You can probably guess that. I went to Paul's farm.'

‘And were you there overnight?'

‘Oh, no! We don't do overnight. We don't want the children to know about us.' She was suddenly careful of her children's sensibilities, where her own conduct had seemed to concern her not a jot. But that was quite a normal convolution: people became more sensitive when children were involved. And in any case, cynical CID men thought, once a young son and daughter were aware of an affair, Adam Cassidy would have learned of it very quickly.

‘So you left Mr Barnes's residence at what time?'

‘It must have been around eleven. I was back here before half past.'

Northcott made a careful note of the times. There was a cutting edge to Peach's voice as he said, ‘Is there anything else in your previous statement which you wish to revise, Mrs Cassidy?'

‘No.' For the first time, Jane Cassidy looked a trifle embarrassed. ‘I take your point that I should have told you this at first. I'm sorry I acted so foolishly. But will it be possible to keep it confidential that I was with Paul on Friday night? I don't want Damon and Kate to find out about it through gossiping neighbours.'

Peach gave her the standard reply with his face as inscrutable as a Buddha's. ‘We treat all information as confidential, Mrs Cassidy. Of course, if it becomes evidence in a court case, the matter passes out of our hands.'

SIXTEEN

P
each drove as they made their way back to Brunton from Jane Cassidy's house. He had an intimate knowledge of the lanes around here, which were little changed from the days when he had walked and cycled over them as a boy. These roads were actually easier to negotiate at nights, when the headlights of approaching vehicles gave notice of their arrival on blind bends.

It was not until they were running into Clitheroe on the B road, that he said thoughtfully, ‘I'm beginning to see things about this case. But through a glass darkly; I'm not sure what they mean as yet.'

Clyde Northcott waited for him to enlarge upon this rather gnomic thought, but nothing else came from his DCI. So Clyde checked his mobile phone messages and decided one of them was significant enough to demand an immediate response. ‘Delroy? Clyde Northcott here. What have you got for me?'

‘Not on the phone, Mr Northcott.'

‘Where, then? Behind the
Fox and Pheasant
?'

‘No. You'll need to come here. Back door, through the yard.' There was a sudden fear in the thin voice that Northcott would ring off. ‘I've got something worth your while.'

‘OK, Delroy. What time?'

‘Tonight. Nine o'clock.'

‘You got it.' He rang off, stared at the road ahead through the windscreen for thirty seconds, then responded to Peach's unspoken query. ‘A snout. About this case.'

‘Tread carefully, lad. There are some nasty sods involved in this case.' The warning was as near as Percy Peach would come to voicing affection for his new DS bagman.

Unless he is very new and very junior, every CID officer has his snouts. These are usually pathetically small fish, swimming in the dangerous pools of the criminal underworld, supplementing the income they make there with useful but erratic payments from police officers for information they pick up and retail. For a man in his mid-twenties, Detective Sergeant Clyde Northcott had a surprisingly extensive range of snouts. It was a range which would only have been available to a man who had once been among the villains himself.

Five years ago, Clyde had been a small-time dealer in illicit drugs with a reliable source of supply. In those days, given forty-eight hours, he could get his hands on heroin, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and even Rohypnol, the sex drug which was in constant demand. With his physique and the talent for violence he had developed through his teenage years, he had been able to look after himself on the dangerous paths he chose to tread.

Then, before he had any serious criminal record, he had become a murder suspect in a case handled by the then Detective Inspector Peach. He was totally innocent, but things looked bad for him for a while. At the conclusion of the case, Peach, recognizing his qualities as well as his talent for the wrong sort of company, had encouraged him to join the police force. Two years later, Percy had recruited him to his CID team. When marriage necessitated the departure of DS Lucy Blake from this elite group, Clyde Northcott, who had shown many more talents than the ‘hard bastard' ones which Peach always instanced, was promoted to detective sergeant alongside his mentor.

The best of snouts have a nose for information and make considerable sums from the police budget allocated to them. But it is a hazardous trade, for they are divulging information about very dangerous men. Only the most shrewd and cautious of snouts survive for long. Delroy Flecker was moderately shrewd and immensely cautious. He also had the snout's talent for hoovering up information from a multitude of different sources.

Three hours after he had spoken to Flecker on his mobile, Clyde Northcott, in jeans, trainers and a black polo-neck sweater, moved cautiously through the shadows towards the back entrance of a terraced house in the oldest part of Brunton. There were not many of these houses left now, with flagged stone backyards leading down to heavily bolted wooden gates beside what had originally been outside privies. He flashed his small torch briefly and checked the number twenty-three which was crudely painted in grey upon the green of the door.

The bolts were not drawn. The door squeaked softly as he inched it back on its worn hinges. He listened for a moment, then slid through and moved towards the rear of the house, where light spilled thinly through the crack in the shut curtains. A cat flew suddenly and silently from somewhere near his feet, over the six feet high brick wall to his left and into the blackness beyond it. He was pleased to see the flash of its silhouette for a moment on the top of the wall; he had thought at first it must be a rat.

The door opened immediately to his quiet tap. The man whom he now followed through the battered kitchen and into the room beyond it was a foot shorter than him and half his weight. He sat Clyde down on a dining chair beside the scratched table and took the other one himself. Delroy Flecker was in his fifties, with flecks of white in his frizzy hair and eyes which seemed never to rest anywhere for longer than a second. He was even blacker than Northcott, but where the younger man's features were as smooth as those of a carved Egyptian deity, Flecker's were as heavily lined as those of a man twenty years older than himself.

He said, ‘It's big stuff, this, Mr Northcott. But dangerous for me.' He glanced nervously over his shoulder, as if fearing that there might be listeners, even in this empty house.

Clyde gave him a brief, encouraging smile. ‘Spit it out, Delroy. Then we'll decide how big it is.'

‘Charlie Ford.' Flecker spoke as if the name itself should be impressive, then glanced at Northcott to see if it was.

Charlie Ford was a contract killer, known to have dispatched half a dozen people in the last two years. Like most of his trade, he was impossible to pin down. Those who could have given the evidence which might have brought him to justice were far too frightened to do so. He operated in different parts of the country, under three names, and had almost certainly committed several more killings than the six which the police had assigned to him.

Northcott, professionally impassive, said, ‘It's a name, Delroy. No more than a name, until you're prepared to make it more. Can you tell me his target?'

‘No. But I can tell you who was using him and how much he paid.'

‘Let's have it then.'

Flecker put a gaunt hand on the table, advanced it for a moment towards his visitor, then thought better of the move. ‘I need the money up front, Mr Northcott.'