Murder Most Merry (45 page)

Sure you did, she jeered, not aloud. Apart from an older man and younger woman murmuring in a snug corner (boss courting a soon-to-be-even-more-personal assistant, Jill surmised cattily) they had the bar to themselves. “Done all your Christmas shopping?” Haggard inquired. “Going anywhere for the break, or spending it with Mum and Dad?”

Satisfied that small-talk obligations were discharged, he continued before she could match banality with banality, “I’ve had a file passed to you, luv. Before you drown in details, seemed a good idea to talk you through it.”

Despite a flick of irritation, Jill Tierce was vaguely relieved. It was upsetting when leopards changed their spots. Superintendent Haggard’s were still in place, he wasn’t dispensing Christmas cheer but attempting to spread blame; if she reviewed one of his setbacks, she assumed part of the responsibility.

“I’m listening,” she said flatly.

To her surprise, Haggard was... what? Not hangdog exactly. yet defensive. Obviously shelving a prepared presentation, he said, “Forget so-called perfect crimes—untraceable poisons, trick alibis, some bright spark who’s a master of disguise,
Im
perfect crimes are the bastards to deal with. Chap had a brainstorm, lashes out at a total stranger, and runs for his life. Unless he gets collared on the spot, blood still running, we’ve no chance. Or. say, this respectable housewife is getting messages from Mars, personal relay station in a flying saucer. Eh? Height of the rush hour, she’s in a crowd and shoves a child under a bus. Goes on home, like normal. No planning, no sane motive, they don’t even try that hard to get away, they just... go about their business. “It gets to me,” he admitted needlessly. “Well, this one instance does. Prostitute killed, and what’s a streetwalker but somebody in extra danger from crazies? Mitzi Field, twenty-four years old but looked younger. Mitzi was just her working name, mind.”

“There’s a surprise.”

He didn’t rise to the sarcasm. “Dorothy Field on the death certificate but we’ll stick to Mitzi, that’s what she was known as, to the few who did know her.”

“She was found in Grand Drive ten days before Christmas three years ago. Dead of repeated blows from something with sharp angles, most likely a brick. I see her getting into some curb crawler’s car, and he drove her to where she was attacked. Saw red—wanted what she wouldn’t provide, she tried ripping him off, plenty of possible reasons—snatched the nearest weapon, bashed her as she turned to run, kept bashing.” The theory was delivered with pointed lack of emotion, Superintendent Haggard back in full control.

“Drove her there... the car was seen?” Jill held up a hand. “Sorry, not thinking straight.” Mount Wolfe was one of the city’s best quarters, Grand Drive its best address.

“Exactly,” said Haggard. “Mitzi had started living rough, so she looked tatty. She’d had a mattress in a squat, that old factory on Victoria Quay, but the council demolished it the week before her death. The docks were her beat. She was wearing those big boots, like the movie—”

“
Pretty Woman
,” Jill suggested.

“Those’re the jokers, long boots and hot-pants and a ratty leather jacket with her chest hanging out—in December! The boots were borrowed from another girl, too tight, had to be sliced off her feet. Walking two miles from the docks to where she was found would have crippled her. And okay, it was dark, but a feller and a blatantly obvious hooker didn’t foot it all the way up the Mount and along to the end of Grand Drive without being noticed. Which they were not, house-to-house checks established that.”

Taking another, rationed sip of champagne—the pub sold it by the glass, else Haggard might not have stood for the drink of her choice, she suspected—Inspector Tierce frowned doubtfully.

“Grand Drive’s the last place a working girl would pick for business. It’s a private road, and they’re very territorial round there—sleeping policeman bumps every fifty yards to stop cars using it for a shortcut, and if a non-resident parks in the road, somebody rings us within minutes, wanting him shifted...”

“Stresses that the punter was a stranger here,” Haggard argued. “Businessman on an overnight, or he tired of motorway driving, detoured into town for a meal and a change of scene. Mitzi wasn’t a local, either. Londoner originally, family split up after she was sexually abused. Went on the game after absconding from a council home when she was fifteen. Summer before her death she worked the transport cafes. Reading. Bath, Bristol, drifted far as here and stayed.”

“For my money, the punter spotted her at the docks. Then they drove around. She had no crib, did the business in cars or alleys. Maybe this punter was scared of getting mugged if they stuck around the docks. Driving at random, they spot a quiet-looking street, plenty of deep shadow at the far end where the trees are. Must have seemed safe enough, and so it was—for him. Nobody saw them arrive or him leaving. Some pet lover daft enough to walk the dog in a hailstorm found Mitzi’s body that night, but she could have lain there till morning otherwise.”

“All known curb crawlers were interviewed and cleared. Ditto the Dodgy List.” Superintendent Haggard referred to the extensive register of sex offenders whose misdeeds ranged from assaults to stealing underwear off washing lines. “Copybook imperfect crime: guy blew a gasket and got the hell out. Ensuring the perfect result for him.”

“Thanks for hyping me up,” Inspector Tierce responded dryly. She’d been right, ambitious Haggard wanted to distance himself from defeat. Cutting corners to achieve it: in theory, if not always in practice, the assistant chief decreed what files she studied. Unless she made a stand, final disposition of the Dorothy “Mitzi” Field case would rest with her rather than the superintendent.

“I haven’t finished.” But he stayed silent for a moment before seeming to digress. “Know the old wives’ tale about a murderer having to return to the scene of the crime? Laughable! Only I’ve got a screwy notion that superstitions have a basis in fact. Anyway, a man has been hanging about in Grand Drive recently. Sitting in his car like he’s waiting for somebody... right where the kid’s body lay. He’s a local, which blows my passing stranger stuff out of the water—still, I’m not proud, I am happy to take any loose end offered.”

But that’s the point, Jill parried mentally, keeping a poker face, you’re not taking it. And a helpful colleague giving loose ends a little tug just might end up under the pile of rocks they release.

“This fellow,” Superintendent Haggard continued doggedly, “has been haunting Grand Drive. Uniformed branch looked into it after several complaints from residents. They’re a bit exclusive up there, not to mention paranoid about burglars, scared the bloke was casing their houses. What jumped out at me was one old girl being pretty certain the same chap, leastways somebody in an identical car. did the same thing at Christmastime last year. She was adamant that he was there for an hour or more every day for a week.”

He treated her to a phony’s smile. “Got to be interesting. Because whatever this man is, he’s no burglar. A pest and a pain in the arse, but no record and a steady job, good references. Uniforms didn’t have to trace him, they just waited, and sure enough, he rolled up and parked at the end of Grand Drive. Nowhere near his house, incidentally, and well off the route to it. He gave them a cock-and-bull yarn about birdwatching. They pressed him, and he mouthed off about police harassment, started teaching them the law.”

The smile turned into a sneer. “The man is Noel Sarum, you’ll have heard of him. Yes,
the
Noel Sarum. Spokesman for the Wessex chapter of Fight for Your Rights, does that disgraceful column in the local paper, born troublemaker. Very useful cover if he happens to have a down on hookers and let it get the better of him three years ago.”

Inspector Tierce set her flute of champagne aside. “You forgot your oven gloves. Ought to have them on, handing me a hot potato.”

Lance Haggard spoke a laugh. “You can deal with it. Routine review of the Field case, search for possible witnesses overlooked in the original trawl. Sarum can’t object to an approach on those terms—he’s always banging on about being ready to do his civic duty without knuckling under to mindless bullying.”

“You tell him that, then. It was your case.”

“Ah.” Superintendent Haggard took a long pull at his draught Guiness. “It wasn’t, you see. I’ve kept myself
au fait
, but... no, it’s not down to me.”

Shifting restively, he went off on another tangent. “My daughter... Beth was nearly eighteen back then, but her mental age is nearer six or seven. Lovely girl, couldn’t ask for a nicer, but never mind the current jargon, simpleminded. You knew about that,” he accused edgily.

Jill hadn’t, but she nodded and waited.

“Beth used to go to special school, homecraft and so forth.... She may have to look after herself when me and the wife have snuffed it. I couldn’t give Beth a lift every day. No problem, bus stop outside our house. Nell sees the girl aboard, three stops later, out she gets. But one night a water main burst, and the bus went a different way. Beth was set down two streets from us. It confused her.

“Nell phoned me, frantic, when the girl was an hour overdue. I pulled rank, had the area cars searching. What we hadn’t imagined was Beth getting on
another
bus, she thought they all went to our house. This one’s terminus was the docks, and the driver made her get out. She was crying but he didn’t want to know.”

“Of course I shot home, and damned if a taxi didn’t pull up behind me, with Nell and a young woman who’d found her: Mitzi Field. I recognized her from court, she was a regular. Cut a long story short, Beth was wandering the docks, running away if any male asked why she was crying; we’d drilled that into her, never talk to strange men. Mitzi twigged she needed help, looked us up in the phonebook, and flagged down a cab.”

Haggard fiddled with his empty glass. “Nell made her come in for some grub and a cup of tea. God forgive me, grateful or no, I was pleased to see the back of her, the girl was dirty under the paint and dead cheap. Nell, my wife, isn’t practical except round the house. Church on Sunday, says her prayers every night. She wanted to help Mitzi, give her a fresh start, once our girl was in bed and I’d explained what Mitzi was. I told Nell to forget it, the best help to her sort is leaving them alone. She’d still sleep rough and be on the game with a thousand quid in her purse.”

“Easy to say when you don’t want hassle—and how would it have looked, me taking a common prostitute, a dockside brass, under my wing? A month later she got herself killed.”

He put a hand atop Jill Tierce’s. “Comes back to me every Christmas, how we owed that girl and... we didn’t let her down but... you follow? It was Len Poole’s inquiry, I can’t involve myself. You can. Christmas, and I’m asking for a present. Something isn’t kosher about Noel Mr. Crusader Bloody Sarum; give him a spin, and help ease my blasted conscience.”

Taking his hand back, he blustered, “Any of that personal stuff leaks out, I’ll skin you alive.” But it was appeal rather than threat. Oh yes, Jill reflected, coppers were human all right—even devoutly ambitious ones.

Noel Sarum lived in one of the Monopoly-board houses of a new estate, Larkspur Crest. For no good reason Inspector Tierce had expected a student-type flat festooned in Death to Tories banners, fragrant with pot fumes and dirty socks.

Like most police officers, she was aware of Sarum. His know-your-rights column in the weekly paper kept sniping at law enforcers. Jill had acknowledged that the diatribes were justified in general terms, yet still she felt resentful, attacked while denied another right—of defense. Somehow she’d formed a picture of an acrid character with a straggly beard and John Lennon glasses, spitting venom via his word processor. He was a teacher, too. probably indoctrinating whole generations of copper-baiters. Not that they needed encouragement.

She was taken aback by the man opening the glossy front door of pin-neat Number 30. Fifty, she judged, but relatively unlined, face open under a shock of silver-gray hair. Track suit and trainers reinforced the youthful, vigorous impression. Before she could speak, he beamed and exclaimed, “Why, it’s the lame duck!”

Sensitive over her treacherous leg, she bristled, then recognized the face and decoded his remark. It was the Samaritan from that half-marathon in the happy time before she’d been hurt. Talked into running for charity, she’d not realized that the friendly fellow partnering her for the final miles was Sarum, scourge of the police.

Jill had been quite taken with him. He’d struck her as a man appreciating female company for its own sake. If he’d been ten years younger or she a decade older, she might have tried making something of it. As things were, when the event finished he’d wrapped her in a foil blanket and trotted away to help somebody else.

“You’re a police, um, person,” he said, returning Inspector Tierce’s warrant card. “I wondered what you did for a living, never thought of
that
. Come on in.”

The living room contrived to be homely and pristine, sealed woodblock floor reflecting carefully tended plants. “Passes inspection, huh? I lost my wife five years ago, but I try to maintain her standards. Must have known you were coming, that’s the coffee perking, not my tummy rumbling. Take a pew, I’ll get it—black, white, sugar, no sugar?”

He was just as he’d been on the charity run, chatting as if resuming a relationship after minutes instead of years. Some people did it naturally, and in her experience, the majority were as uncomplicated as their manner. He made reasonable coffee, as well... “What’s the problem? Can’t be anything too shattering, but you’re a senior rank.”