Verdict Unsafe (27 page)

Lloyd walked along the underpass to where Drummond’s body was slumped against a buttress in a kneeling position, facing the wall. It was bloody and bullet-ridden, and it smacked of an execution to Lloyd. It was right at the other end of the underpass from the bonfire, almost at its exit into the park. That was where Drummond’s mobile phone had been found, broadcasting Handel to the emergency services. He could have realized he was in danger, dialed 999, and then dropped it as he ran away from his pursuer, only to be followed into the underpass.

Lloyd walked up the ramp to the railing-enclosed parkland, crisscrossed with paths, its once formal flower beds and lawns being kept down, rather than up, by the Council. No shortage of trees and bushes, which probably looked after themselves, and into which the murderer could have thrown an entire arsenal of weapons. The odd bench and shelter. It was open all year round, twenty-four hours a day. It had a large paved area which had originally been for a bandstand; now, it had the occasional car parked on it. And it might have had a car parked on it tonight, Lloyd thought, but no one would have seen it. Which was, of course, what the murderer would be counting on.

He went back down into the underpass, and found that the lights and the SOCOs had arrived with commendable speed. He watched as the lights came on, as everyone got busy, while he considered the possibilities.

People who would have cheerfully murdered Colin Drummond, form an orderly queue, he thought. It would stretch from one end of the underpass to the other. All of his victims, save the one he murdered, and all of their husbands, brothers, fathers … an awful lot of people might have wanted to send Drummond off to join the great minority. Boyfriends, sisters,
mothers, widowers … flatmates. Bobbie Chalmers. She was interesting, because she could very easily get hold of a gun.

And, of course, police officers could, especially if they were corrupt in the first place, get hold of guns. He had to bear Case’s theory in mind to some extent; it might not have been Drummond who was pulling the strings in an attempt to incriminate Judy, but an ex-colleague of hers who had been manipulating Drummond. If they were both out to get Judy for different reasons, this could be the result of a falling-out of thieves. So, yes, he would bear in mind that an ex-Malworth police officer might well have killed Drummond. But for the moment, Bobbie Chalmers was his favorite, as a working hypothesis.

The emergency call had been made at three minutes past nine; the emergency services had arrived at nine-fifteen, still not knowing what they were looking for. The body had been found at nine twenty-five, the phone two minutes later. It was the uniforms who had found him, but at least Case couldn’t complain about their efficiency. It had, of course, been sheer luck. A lone officer had thought he’d better check the underpass. Still, the CID had a lot to live up to on this one.

“Guv?” Tom came along the underpass toward him. “I’ve got someone over there who saw a woman going into the underpass at about nine o’clock,” he said. “He noticed, because women hardly ever use it if they’re alone, not after dark.”

“Did we get a description? Could it have been one of his victims?”

“Well,” said Tom. “I don’t think so. Dark-haired, about five-seven, nicely dressed, thirties, respectable-looking. Mrs. Jarvis is fair-haired, Lucy Rogerson and Ginny Fredericks are too young—I don’t think it could have been any of them.”

“Could have been Bobbie Chalmers,” Lloyd said. “She has more reason to want to kill Drummond than most.”

Tom frowned. “She’s blond,” he said.

“Not anymore.”

“She’s only about twenty-six,” said Tom.

“Well? It was dark.”

“Nicely dressed? She’s a bit flashy for that description, isn’t she, guv?”

“Nice is in the eye of the beholder,” said Lloyd. “She has every motive in the world to want to shoot him, and I’m sure she can have access to a semiautomatic pistol if she chooses.”

“That’s why I’m having trouble with ‘respectable-looking,’” said Tom. “I mean—that description sounds more like Judy than Bobbie Chalmers. With respect,” he added, with a smile.

Tom had obviously been treated to Judy’s opinion of their new Chief Superintendent. He was quite famous, apparently, though he had been merely a name to Lloyd, one he had heard floating around Bartonshire Constabulary for years. Matt Burbidge apparently knew him as Hard Case; Lloyd privately thought of him as Head Case. “Tom, can you hold the fort here?” he asked. “I’d like to talk to the Drummonds, find out if they know where Colin was going, what he was doing tonight.”

“Sure, guv.”

Colin’s parents lived on the other side of the bypass, naturally, on the outskirts of Malworth, where the houses took up a great deal of room, and rarely had more than two occupants. The Drummonds looked so much older than when Lloyd had last seen them that he was quite shocked; it had only been two years. But they had seen their son tried for rape, and convicted. Custom had suffered; they had had to close the Malworth shop, and the Barton one had only just survived. Then the conviction had been overturned; now, their son was dead. Lloyd didn’t suppose that he would have come out of that lot looking any less emotionally ravaged.

“I don’t want to intrude,” he said. “It’s just that if we can get an idea of where Colin might have been going, it would help.”

“He said he was meeting someone,” said Mrs. Drummond.

“Meeting someone? Did he say who?”

“No.” She wiped her nose, her eyes, with a paper handkerchief screwed into a ball so tight it could hardly be seen. “Someone rang him.”

“When?” said Lloyd.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Did they ring here, or his mobile?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled tearfully. “He took that everywhere,” she said. “It reminded me of when he was little and he had to take this spoon everywhere. Just an ordinary dessert spoon. But if we took him out anywhere, he had to have his spoon.”

Lloyd nodded. Until now he had never thought of Drummond as having had a childhood. “Can you tell me what he said about this phone call?” he asked.

“He said someone had rung him saying that they had information on Rosa. That’s the—the girl he was seeing.”

“Yes,” said Lloyd. “I know.”

“And then he said, ‘so I won’t be in this evening,’ and he left here about half past eight.”

“Thank you,” said Lloyd.

“He was very anxious to trace Rosa,” she said. “She could prove that he didn’t do those things. It’s one thing—being acquitted—it’s another being able to prove to people that you’re innocent.”

“Yes,” said Lloyd.

“Do you—” She broke off, touched her nose with the tiny ball of paper, and tried again. “Do you think someone lured him with that?” she asked. “And killed him?”

Yes, he did rather. “I don’t know, Mrs. Drummond,” he said. “But rest assured, we will know more soon.” And he left.

Mr. Drummond hadn’t said a word.

When he got back, Freddie was just getting out of his car. He grinned at Lloyd. “I know I wanted you to get him,” he said. “But a simple arrest would have done.”

“Someone got him,” Lloyd said, as they walked into the underpass to a backdrop of Roman candles and starbursts.

Freddie stopped walking. “Be honest, Lloyd,” he said. “He threatened Judy. Off the record, this time of all times—do you honestly
care
who killed him?”

“I don’t give a damn that he’s dead,” said Lloyd. “You can make as many jokes over this corpse as you like. But no one has the right to do that to anyone else, so of course I care who killed him.”

Freddie shook his head. “You can be a sanctimonious so-and-so, do you know that?” he said good-humoredly.

Lloyd didn’t think so. “If it’s what it looks like,” he said, “it’s someone taking the law into his or her own hands, and exceeding even its powers.”

“Yes, Lloyd.” Freddie sighed, on the move again, anxious to get to the corpse as ever, as it came into view in a blaze of light, and he crouched down in the drafty, damp underpass to begin his examination, the legends “FU” in blue paint, and “FU2” in red paint on the wall behind him, a happy man.

In due course, Freddie said the body could go to the morgue; Lloyd sent a car for the Drummonds, so that formal identification could be made and details released to the press, who were already gathering as word got around.

The caretakers left, and Matt shut and locked the back door. The block of shops and businesses were owned by some development company who employed caretakers; they worked until ten-thirty, and after that those of their tenants who felt the need for security made their own arrangements.

Matt was on duty now until the staff arrived at nine. He checked that the main door was double locked and bolted, that the lights were all out, that the internal doors were all locked, that the vaults were in order, that the cameras were operational, that he’d remembered to bring his sandwiches, and that the windows were secure.

Then he switched on the alarms, and Northstead Securities was guarded against fire, flood, and pestilence for another night.

“Well, you’re not concussed, there’s nothing broken, and there’s no serious head injury,” said the doctor, and smiled at her. “If we’d known that we wouldn’t have seen you so quickly,” he added. “You’d have had to wait your turn behind all the burnt hands.”

Ginny smiled back. It wasn’t easy, with her lip twice its normal size. She had been taken straight in; she had been given all
sorts of tests and things. Her open eye ached, and her cheek was swollen up so much she could see it, and not much else.

“So I’m going to let you go home,” he said. “But only if there’s someone there to keep an eye on you.”

She nodded. “Lennie,” she said.

“Can I ask who Lennie is?”

“My husband.”

He looked surprised, and finished stitching the cut on her forehead. She couldn’t feel anything. He’d done it like the dentist does your teeth. He said it would hurt when it wore off. It might as well. Everything else did.

“There,” he said.

“Will I have a scar?”

He wiggled his head about. “You will,” he said, “I’m afraid. But it won’t be a bad scar.” He smiled again. “Interesting,” he said. “That’s what it’ll be. About an inch long. It goes through your eyebrow, and the hair won’t grow back, but you can use eyebrow pencil to cover it.”

That didn’t sound too bad. But she hadn’t seen herself in a mirror yet, and she knew she didn’t want to. She slid off the trolley. “Can I go, then?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve given the police inspector a card—it just says what your husband should watch out for. You’ve taken a lot of nasty blows to the head, and these painkillers are quite strong. I thought it better to give it to her, in case you do get a bit groggy and forget. Is that all right? She said she’d be taking you home.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your throat?” he asked. “Another client?”

“Yeah.”

“How old are you, Ginny?”

“Nineteen next month,” she said.

He shook his head slightly. “You could do anything you wanted,” he said. “You don’t have to run these risks. Find yourself a less hazardous occupation.”

Ginny didn’t know what that meant, but she supposed it
meant one where people didn’t try to strangle you because they felt like it.

The doctor walked with her out to where Inspector Hill stood. “Here she is,” he said. “As good as new.”

“Hello, Inspector,” said a nurse, who came along the corridor with a trolley wheeled by two porters. “We’ve got a suspected GBH here, if you’re interested—he was found just around the corner on the pavement.”

“No thanks,” said Inspector Hill, smiling back. “You can go through the usual channels—I’m off-duty.”

“Is this just a hobby, then?” asked the doctor, jerking his head at Ginny.

The inspector smiled, and they went out to her car. Ginny got to sit up in it this time. But she didn’t get any peace.

“Right, Ginny,” Judy said, as soon as they were on their way. “What happened to you?”

Ginny shrugged. “A punter,” she lied.

“Where were you with this punter?”

“In the underpass.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” said the inspector.

Stansfield had had its own Guy Fawkes celebrations, of course; the boating lake’s bonfire was being damped down, the firework display long over. For the last hour people had been drifting off in ones and twos and small family parties, going home after the fun. Rob had been busy. But now only groups of teenagers hung around, looking to get into mischief, not taxis.

Rob drove onto the main road and turned right, up to the rank at the top of the hill, in the town center. He pulled in behind the dozen or so cabs already there, waiting for the pubs to start emptying.

He wished he hadn’t told Lennie about the gun. He had been peeved at being taken by surprise like that. He’d got slow since he’d left the army. It had annoyed him, someone like Lennie doing that to him, and he’d said it before he’d thought. Ginny had probably got a hiding for it, and it had been a stupid thing
to do. He moved up the rank as the taxis peeled off. Roll on midnight, when he could relax and have a snooze. He deserved it. He’d done a good night’s work.

“One,” said Judy, “you don’t need to take customers down the underpass. Two, it was too early for that—the punters don’t start coming until at least ten o’clock, and three, you wouldn’t be wearing an old sweater and jogging pants if you’d been working.” She glanced at her, at her poor, battered, swollen face, at the neat row of stitches through her eyebrow. “Did Colin Drummond do that to you?” she asked.

“No,” said Ginny.

“It wasn’t a punter, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you be in the underpass with a punter?”

She shrugged. “Lennie’s got me working the park again,” she said. “They can’t drive me back to the house—it would take too long with the traffic.”

“What’s wrong with the van? He’s still got it. That’s what you used to use.”

Ginny went sullen on her. Judy had been driving faster going back than she had coming, but now she deliberately slowed down to give herself more time to talk to the girl without Lennie there.