Brothers' Tears (16 page)

‘But I didn't do it. I couldn't have done it. Your lot arrested me on Saturday. Burst in on me whilst I was still in bed with Linda, the way you pigs like to do. Your boss was telling anyone who'd listen that you'd arrested me for murder by Saturday lunch time.'

‘Heard about that, have you? He does a good line in boasting, our boss does.' Peach's voice hardened. ‘But it doesn't get you off the hook, Pete boy. Dominic O'Connor was murdered on Friday night, when you were still at large and obeying your latest orders.'

‘But I didn't do it. What happened to innocent until proved guilty, Peach?'

‘Nothing at all, Pete boy. It remains a basic principle of the English law. And an admirable one, no doubt about that, despite what frustrated coppers might say. But it doesn't always operate in practice. I'm no lawyer, thank God, but my guess is that when we've got you banged to rights for one murder, the jury and everyone else in court will be more inclined to think you guilty of another. Especially when they're looking at a man who's made his living by violence for years, like you.' Percy nodded two or three times, then let a smile steal slowly over his round face at his happiness in that thought.

‘I was with my wife on Friday night.'

‘Ah, the old wife alibi. Suspicious but difficult to disprove.'

‘You ask Linda. She'll tell you.'

‘She might. Unfortunately for you, she might be in clink herself by the time your case comes to court. We know all about her involvement in the procurement of minors for prostitution and worse. We'll be delighted to put her away. That won't make her a very reliable witness for you, though, will it?'

‘I didn't kill Dominic O'Connor. I'm not worried what you do.'

‘Ah, the joys of a clear conscience! But it must be a long time since you knew anything about that, Mr Coleman. Best thing you could do about this second murder is admit it and put in a plea for mercy, I should think. The court might appreciate your honesty if you did that, but I wouldn't rely on it. We'll leave you to think about it. Lot of time for thought in here, I expect.'

It was a relief to move through the old prison entrance and out into the bright sunlight of the May day. They were well on the way back to Brunton when Clyde Northcott, who was driving, said, ‘You gave him a fair going over in there.'

‘Yes. Quite enjoyed it. I don't feel any obligations towards scum like Coleman. Or his wife, for that matter; you can't get lower than pushing kids from care homes into prostitution and making them victims of gang rape.'

‘Peter Coleman won't come out for a long time. We've got a safe case on the murder of James O'Connor.'

‘Yes.' Peach looked away thoughtfully over the moors as they slid by on his left. ‘He didn't kill Dominic O'Connor, though, did he? We've got a whole new can of worms to deal with there.'

T
he widow of the elder O'Connor brother was coping well with his death. It was a week now since James had died. Sarah had coped with the pressures of sympathy from those around her and those at a distance. She had composed a standard letter of thanks for the messages of condolence which had poured in from England and Ireland – Jim's death at Claughton Towers had been too dramatic and well-publicised for people to miss it.

The most difficult thing for her to handle had been her daughter's grief. Clare had been the person in the world hit hardest by Jim's killing. She had been close to her father as she grew up, in the way that daughters are. He had been away from home a lot when she was young, but he had been able to indulge her when he appeared, in the manner which was customary for doting dads.

Clare had taken Jim's death hard and the fact that she was an intelligent girl had made it more difficult for her mother. Her daughter had seen through Sarah's conventional protestations of grief, been sceptical about the prayers and the trappings of religion behind which she had tried to retreat. ‘You didn't feel like I did about Dad. I'm sure you had your reasons. But, Mum, don't pretend you're devastated by this when you aren't. That would make it much worse for me to bear.'

They'd had an uneasy weekend, but Clare had gone back to university now. No doubt she would find her consolation with the thin and pimply youth who had been with her at Claughton Towers on that fatal Monday night. Jim had been baffled by what his daughter saw in that tongue-tied youth who was in so many ways still a boy; he'd been unable to divine what it was that attracted Clare. Probably the lad was good in bed; Sarah certainly hoped he was. She hoped he would provide consolation and diversion for Clare, rather than allowing her thoughts to dwell on the mother who seemed so little affected by her husband's death.

No one knew the full story of their marriage and she had every intention of keeping it that way. These things were private and it was much better for all concerned if they stayed private. It was the same with grief. Sarah had a greater grief than Clare thought she had for Jim. But her mourning for him was for times long gone and what might have been, not for the man he had been at his death. Her task now was to keep control of herself until the world resumed its normal rhythms.

She decided on Tuesday morning that she would tidy the bathroom and remove all Jim's stuff from it. It had to be done and she needed a task to occupy her. She took the waste bin with her and began to pitch male toiletries into it. She had scarcely begun when the phone rang. For the last few days, she'd been letting it ring and waiting until the evening to listen to whatever messages people left. But normal service must be resumed at some time. She went into the bedroom and picked up the receiver there.

An impassive female voice told her that Detective Chief Inspector Peach would like to speak to her as soon as possible. She told the woman that he should come to the house now. Best get it over with, she told herself as she put the phone down. But she could feel the pulse in her temple beginning to race.

The post-mortem and forensics reports on Dominic O'Connor didn't offer the CID team anything they hadn't expected.

He had died quickly, throttled within seconds by means of a cable thrown round his neck, almost certainly from behind him as he sat at his desk. The victim had lifted his hands in an attempt to drag the cable from his neck, but had not reached as far as his attacker, for there was nothing useful found on his hands or beneath his fingernails. The death weapon was available but uninformative. Forensics had already examined the cable which had been embedded in the corpse's neck and found it to be the sort of electrical cable attached to millions of household machines around the country. The assailant had probably brought it with him, but even if he hadn't the five-feet length applied would have been readily available on appliances within the house.

The report pointed out that the criminal could possibly have been a woman; the victim appeared to have been taken by surprise, in which case no great physical strength would have been required. The ends of the cable bore signs of being twisted hard and fast between someone's hands, but there was nothing useful in the way of fingerprints: the attacker had almost certainly worn gloves.

In the hours after O'Connor's death, the door of the room which had been his office had been shut, as had the large, south-facing window. The room temperature had varied from near-freezing overnight to almost ninety degrees Fahrenheit as the sun had poured through that window before the body was discovered on Saturday afternoon. Therefore any deductions from the progress of rigor mortis must necessarily be highly tentative, which made the establishment of a time of death very difficult.

However, analysis of stomach contents indicated that a substantial cold meal of sandwiches, fruit and fruit cake had been consumed some two hours before death. An almost empty flask of coffee had been found in the bottom drawer of the desk. O'Connor had died more than twenty – and anything up to thirty – hours before he was discovered at 16.07 by DCI Peach and DS Northcott. Establishing the time when he had last eaten would pinpoint the time of death.

Forensics had found fibres on the corpse's person which were from someone else's clothing, as well as hairs which were quite certainly from someone else's head. These might of course have no connection with the murder. A locked drawer contained personal letters which had been fingerprinted by forensics and had now been passed to the man in charge of the investigation.

Peach and Northcott immediately found one of these very relevant.

Peach thought Sarah O'Connor looked rather more upset than she'd been six days earlier, when they'd interviewed her about the murder of her husband. Her face was composed but very white beneath the shining black hair; her dark eyes glittered deep in their sockets. She looked as if she had not slept well. There was nothing necessarily significant in that. Shock can be delayed as well as immediate.

James's widow remembered not only Clyde Northcott's name, but his detective sergeant rank, which was unusual.

The CID men looked round the big comfortable room with its luxurious furnishings and fittings. As if she read their thoughts, she said quickly, ‘This place is far too big for me. Clare's off at university and I'm rattling around in this mansion. I shan't stay here, once Jim is buried and I can feel closure.'

Peach nodded. ‘We should be able to release his body quite soon now. You will have heard that we've made an arrest for his murder.'

‘Yes. A man called Peter Coleman, they said on the radio this morning. Not a name I know. But I kept well clear of Jim's business deals.' She sounded as if she was deliberately distancing herself from both her husband and his death.

‘You've missed nothing by not knowing Coleman. He's a violent man who's committed other crimes. We shall get him for this one. He's going to go down for a long time.'

‘That's good. You're used to hearing threats of violence, when you're married to a prominent Irishman, but you somehow don't think it will ever happen to anyone close to you.'

‘And now your brother-in-law has been killed as well. Only a day after you'd met him in the Grouse Inn on the side of Pendle Hill. That must have been another terrible shock for you.'

‘It was. A woman officer called Peach interviewed me on Saturday about Dominic. Would she be any relation to you, DCI Peach?'

He smiled. ‘Detective Sergeant Peach is my wife, Mrs O'Connor. We used to work together, but police procedure dictates that partners cannot work together as a pairing. Lucy was excellent at distracting susceptible males, among other things. DS Northcott doesn't do that; he is able to offer a more physical presence, whenever it is needed.'

Sarah smiled at the big black man, who inclined his head an inch forward in acknowledgement. Then she said, ‘Your wife is quite a looker, DCI Peach.' She waited unsuccessfully for a reaction. ‘Still, you might be better with your new partner in a crisis.'

‘Yes. It seemed rather a strange time for you to be meeting alone with your brother-in-law.'

She thought of saying that she'd already told his wife her reasons for that. But she decided that it was better for her to be as cooperative as she could be. ‘There were some nasty people around Jim, at times. Dominic thought he knew who had killed him. That's why we met.'

‘I see.'

‘He wanted to check a few things out with me. Whether certain people who were at Claughton Towers last Monday night were there at Jim's invitation or mine, for instance. He thought he'd glimpsed the man you mentioned, Peter Coleman, just before Jim was killed. He knew the people Coleman worked for and he wanted to check on one or two of the invitees for that reason.' She had been so composed that it was a surprise when her voice broke suddenly on her next words. ‘He . . . he knew far more about the people Jim worked with and the people who were his business rivals than I did. Dominic steered clear, but he knew a lot of things about Jim.'

‘Do you think that is what cost Dominic his life?'

She was shaken by the question. ‘I don't know, do I? I don't see why – Dominic didn't fish in the same murky pools as Jim.'

‘But two brothers killed in the same week. It would be amazing if there wasn't a connection between the two deaths, don't you think?'

‘I suppose it would. I hadn't really considered the matter before.'

Peach doubted that, but he didn't pursue the notion. ‘Policemen have to keep open minds. We're doing just that.'

Sarah stared down at the elegant navy leather shoes beneath the dark blue trousers which clothed her long legs. ‘You know your own business best. I hope you find who killed Dominic as quickly as you did Jim's killer.'

‘We shall need to know much more than we do at present about the months before his death. I think you can help us with that.'

If he had expected to startle her, he was disappointed. She continued looking down at her feet and allowed herself no more than a small, controlled sigh. ‘And why would you think that, Mr Peach?'

‘We're still investigating the victim's possessions. We found personal letters in a locked drawer in his desk. One of them was from you.'

Now at last she looked at him, with a mixture of fear and resentment on her white face. ‘I had nothing to do with Dominic's death.'

‘You had been conducting an affair with Dominic. You've chosen not to disclose that to us. Secrecy is never a wise policy after a murder. It excites suspicion.'

‘It was all over.'

‘It doesn't seem so, from what you said in your letter.'

Her eyes had tears in them, but she brushed the moisture away angrily before it could run down her cheeks. ‘This is humiliating.'

‘I appreciate that. But we need the details of this. We need to know when this close relationship with your brother-in-law began, how intense it was, when it finished, if indeed it did end as you claim. It is one strand of our enquiry. There will be many others. If your relationship has nothing to do with this death, what you tell us will go no further.'