One Last Lesson (13 page)

‘There is no way I would have killed Sarah,’ he said quietly, ‘I loved her.’ He bowed his head, sobbing.

‘I think this is a good place to stop and get some coffee. Don’t you think Sergeant Walters?’

They left Lehman to his thoughts and headed out of the room and towards the coffee machine at the end of the corridor.

‘The atmosphere was getting a bit heavy in there,’ Walters said.

‘Yeah, I needed a break. There’s no point in bringing up more serious stuff if he’s an emotional wreck.’

Walters fished out the first cup. ‘I’ve seen dirty dishwater look better than what’s in there.’ She took a sip and w
inced. ‘Bloody awful, as usual. You know, just the other day I fancied a drink and went up to the machine on the second floor but the vending guy was there. When he finished cleaning, he opened a catering-sized tub of Nescafe coffee and he let me take a sniff. Amazingly, it looks and smells like instant coffee, so something must happen when it gets inside that machine to turn it into the tasteless crap we have here, but I can’t explain it.’

‘
It’s good to know the machines are cleaned.’

‘What do you think of Lehman?’ she said as they turned
and walked slowly back to the interview room. ‘I don’t think he killed her.’

‘Wh
at makes you say that? He’s only been in the chair fifteen minutes and already I can see both motive and opportunity.’

‘He doesn’t seem the type,
he’s too, I dunno, mild mannered and if you remember, I mean how could you forget, Sarah’s murderer was nothing short of brutal. I always imagined the killer to be someone bigger and more aggressive. Not to mention he said he loved her and I don’t think he was putting that on.’

‘I haven’t made my mind up
about him yet although I think you’re right about the second bit, but don’t forget love can be a strong motive too.’ He paused, thinking. ‘So, we’ve got two suspects. One is Mike Ferris but you don’t think it was him because he told us where the body was, and the other is Jon Lehman but you don’t think it was him either, because he was in love with her. We’re running out of suspects here.’

‘Well, you did say
this case wasn’t going to be easy.’

The
y re-entered the interview room where Lehman was looking composed and thanked them for bringing him a coffee, although that was before he tasted it.

‘So Mr Lehman, if you didn’t kill Sarah, who do you think did?’

‘I have no idea. She was such a sweet girl with no enemies that I can think of.’

‘What about some of the shady characters you work with
on that porn web site of yours? Could they have done it?’

‘What?’ he said looking shocked. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘Mr Lehman, you lied to us about Sarah, but don’t compound my low opinion of you as a truthful witness. I’ve seen it, other people have seen it,’ he said raising his voice, ‘pictures of Sarah with her kit off, pictures of Sarah with her legs open…’ In truth he hadn’t seen them but he was inviting Lehman to contradict him.

‘Stop it! Stop!’ He said. His head dropped to the table, his hands cupping his ears. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘You’ll hear it all right.’ Henderson said. ‘You exploited her, like you’ve been exploiting girls at the university for years!’

‘No. No. No. That’
s just lies, all lies!’ Lehman jerked his head up, his face streaked with tears. ‘They are not exploited; they do it willingly, for money and good money to boot. In any case, Stark says we are doing nothing illegal.’

‘It might not be bloody illegal,’ Walters said, ‘but it wouldn’t go down well with parents
when they find out the man they trusted with the education of their children was running a porn site that was featuring their daughters.’

‘Sneer all you like but we’re doing nothing wrong.’

‘Who’s we?’ asked Henderson.

‘We? I meant me.’

‘No, you bloody didn’t. You’re in partnership with other people. You mentioned Stark. C’mon Mr Lehman, if you are doing nothing wrong you can tell me their names.’

‘No, I won’t.
I can’t.’

‘Look mate,’ he said. ‘I can get their names from other sources much easier than you think but it will take time and let me remind you, this is a murder investigation
and time is something I don’t have a lot of. If I have a mind to, I’ll keep you here until you tell me.’

The word ‘murder’ seemed to have a greater effect on him than the threat to keep him in a police interview room for several hours. He looked down at the desk and muttered, ‘
Alan Stark.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘He’s a law professor at the university.’

‘What’s his involvement?’

‘Same as me, a fellow investor.’

‘And?’

‘A man called Dominic Green. He’s...’

‘Oh, I kno
w who he is,’ he said, ‘everyone in this building knows him: slum landlord, drug dealer and now a successful property developer. Accused of extortion, bribery, assault and murder but never convicted as something untoward usually happens to one of the witnesses. That slime ball needs no introduction.’

The
house was once a pile of rubble, all that remained of a fine Victorian manor house that was destroyed by fire in the mid 1960s and rumoured to be an insurance scam by the titled family who were asset-rich but cash-poor. Dominic Green bought the site and the land but unfortunately not the title, and after clearing away the rubble, built Langley Manor, now one of the region’s finest country residences with over twenty acres of woodland, parkland, lakes and views over two counties.

On Saturday morning Green’s wife Natalie went out riding with their two daughters, Samantha and Bryony, while Green and his best friend and right-hand man, John Lester
often went shooting or fishing. During the pheasant shooting season, he carried a Purdey double-barrelled, twelve-bore shotgun with a beautiful game engraving on the stock and for the first few days, he would carry a big bruise on his right shoulder from the almighty kick it gave when both barrels were fired.

During
the deer-hunting season, which for him was almost any time of the year as he hated the greedy little bastards, he used a Blaser R93 with .308 ammunition, which could drop one of them stone dead from two hundred yards away. Before moving to Langley Manor, he had little experience of the damage Bambi’s could do as he lived in the centre of Hove and the only ‘deers’ he ever saw, were the little old ladies with their blue rinses and lumpy legs, heading down to the post office to collect their pensions.

In only their first year of living in
Langley Manor, a herd twice broke into the garden and ate all the vegetables and most of the rose bushes, and so whenever he lined up the head of one of the four-legged fiends in the cross-hairs of his precision telescopic sight, it made him feel better to imagine he was shooting one of the actual culprits.

This morning was
a different sort of Saturday than he was used to, as there was a visitation from the forces of law and order, more precisely the presence of DI Angus Henderson and DS Carol Walters of Sussex Police. There had been a cold snap over the last few days and so his housekeeper had lit the fire in the small lounge, the room where he liked to sit and read while his daughters were watching their teen programmes on the large plasma television in the other lounge or a DVD in the cinema downstairs, and the place where she put the two detectives while he finished breakfast.

Tall and thin with little excess body fat, Green often skipped meals or ate on the go, but on Saturday
’s he liked to sit down for an orderly breakfast which included two boiled eggs with toast, two cups of Earl Grey tea and deep perusal of the Daily Telegraph.

After finish
ing eating, he left the dirty dishes on the table for his housekeeper to tidy and strolled into the small lounge. It was unusual for him to be dressed in casual clothes on a Saturday morning as he was often in his hunting tweeds, or if doing a bit of planting or inspecting the fences, gardening clothes but for the rest of the week he always wore a traditional three-piece suit.

Henderson was standing
in front of the large bookcase and looking at the books, some of which Green had read but the vast majority he hadn’t as their leather covers and gold embossed lettering were only for show. It was unlikely he would be impressed by the DI’s literary tastes but he was by his height and bearing, as he was a tad over six-feet and the copper enjoyed the edge over him.

The copper was also dressed in civvies but while he bought his clothes from
a tailor in Mayfair, a place where he had shopped for many years and had an account, the detective’s crew-neck jumper and trousers were obviously from a high street chain store. However, what he lacked in dress sense, he more than made up for it in appearance, as he possessed a strong, handsome face with a prominent chin, indicating to him characteristics of honesty and integrity, no more than he expected for all the money he paid in taxes.

H
is turned his attention to Sergeant Walters. He had a prodigious appetite for the female form whether it be tall, short, fat or thin but he also knew that by influencing a woman, whether through generosity, flattery or violence it was often the best way to get to their man.

Walters verged a little too much on the chubby side for his taste
s but there was a nice pair of black nylon-clad legs peeping out from under a navy skirt. A woman who wore a skirt always enjoyed a head start in his book as he liked to see what they were made of, and not have it hidden behind featureless slacks or the arch-destroyer of female style, denim jeans, tight-fitting or not. The navy cardigan over the white blouse was a bit too mumsy for his tastes and reminded him too much of an elderly aunt he despised that had bad breath and crooked teeth, but it revealed enough to tell him that she had a nice pair of titties.

‘Thank you for seeing us Mr Green,’ Henderson said.

‘Absolutely not a problem Inspector Henderson, today is my day off.’

‘It’s mine too,’ he said sitting down, ‘but work always seems to get in the way. Mr Green, I would like to talk to you about the recent murder of a student at Lewes University. You may have seen the story in the news.’

‘I did. It’s a bloody disgrace if you ask me, some psycho picking on a defenceless girl like her. When you catch whoever did it, make sure you string him up from the nearest gallows.’

He was sure the
detective was about to say something about the death penalty or the perils of vengeance but Green nipped in first.

‘I also noticed your name popping up once or twice in the paper
s, Inspector, watch out, you’re becoming a bit of a celebrity.’ He was only teasing but to his disappointment Henderson didn’t rise to the bait.

‘I’m not sure if you’re aware, Mr Green but the girl
that was killed, Sarah Robson was a model on the academic-babes website, a web site I believe, that you part-own.’

He paused ‘Yes, I
was aware. Let me tell you Inspector, you don’t get all this,’ he said spreading his arms wide, ‘without taking a close interest in your investments. Even with this girlie site, which is small beer in comparison to some of the shopping centres and apartment blocks I develop, I still like to know what’s going on. So, yes I did know she worked for us and hopefully I can be of some help to you there.’

‘How do you mean sir?’ Walters said her face displaying a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

‘I mean, Sergeant Walters, that whoever did this awful murder is attacking me and my business, so I want to help you find him.’

‘Hang on a moment sir,’ Henderson said. ‘Whilst we appreciate your offer of help, let me assure you there is no need for your active involvement as we have now over twenty-five officers involved in the case and several promising leads are being followed.’

He held his hand up in a placatory gesture. ‘Fair enough; fair enough. I understand your reluctance to have me treading on your toes and getting in the way of your investigation, so I’ll park my suggestion for the time being but I still intend to make my own enquires.’

‘I’d like to ask you
if you know of anyone that might be targeting your girls, as one of the avenues we are exploring is that her involvement in the web site might be one possible explanation as to why she was murdered.’

‘I’m shocked to hear you say that as she was doing nothing wrong. How does taking your clothes off get you killed? I would be interested to hear your reasoning because I can’t think of any.’

He was trying to be provocative as he knew full well the world was full of sickos and weirdos who would kill or maim another human being, just for looking at them across a bar or wearing the wrong football colours, but he didn’t want them hanging their hat on the easiest branch, simply to grab a few headlines or satisfy the guilt of a few left-wing liberals, of which Brighton possessed more than its fair share.

‘I deliberately said it was one of the avenues we are exploring, Mr Green. I didn’t say it was the only one.’