A City of Strangers (29 page)

“Why?” asked Selena.

“Who lets the flat in his house just as he puts the house on the market? Even though Mrs. Hobbs told anyone who asked that it was just short-term, it obviously reduced its salability. Even these days it's notoriously difficult to unseat sitting tenants. If she'd had her daughter living with her, it could have been seen as a ‘kind gesture.' But she hadn't. She was a perfectly capable woman on her own. That flat in the basement would be a very attractive ‘plus' for anyone looking for a house with a granny flat, for example. Having the flat occupied—and with rather limited access, I imagine—made the house as a whole much less attractive commercially.”

“Do you think she blackmailed him into letting her have it?” Selena asked.

“I doubt it. Mrs. Hobbs is very hot on the miserable ethics of her horrible trade. Blackmail involves a threat of exposure, and she kept her clients by an assurance of absolute secrecy. No—I think he let her have it because she promised him the sort of services he'd made use of in Carrock until two years ago. She was getting a ring together again.”

“What did his note say?” remembered Sergeant Stokes. “Something about how once he'd had it he needed it again—like it was a drug, and the need kept increasing.”

“That's it. I think he was asking for sympathy, though I can't find it in me to give him much.”

“Do the flats in those houses connect with the main part of the house?” Margaret asked.

“Yes, they do. Staircase leading to a door. You see the convenience of it, don't you? He could go to the house in Wynton Lane any time he wanted to without arousing suspicion. He would merely be inspecting his property, making sure that there'd been no break-in, no squatters. He need never be seen actually going into the flat.”

“You said—or implied—” said Malcolm, “that the Hobbs business wasn't the first time you wondered about Pickering.”

“You told me you looked at everyone connected to the case and noted things that didn't add up,” said Stokes. “I can think of things that didn't add up, but for the life of me I can't think of any that led back to Pickering.”

“Little things,” said Oddie, remembering. “Things not really remarked on at the time. Remember when we went to Kevin Phelan's flat, Stokes, and he tried to hide his burned hands? Just before he threw himself on me he said he'd been to Dr. Pickering with them. But when I rang Pickering to ask him about that he got the file on Phelan and said he had been to the surgery, but that he'd seen someone else.”

“Either of them could have misremembered,” commented Margaret.

“True. But just before I went along to the group practice I talked to Phelan, and in among the effing and blinding he insisted that he'd seen Pickering. When I saw his file I saw that all the entries were in the same hand. Pickering could have misremembered if I'd asked him cold, but not with the file in front of him. He had lied.”

“But why?”

“Ah—” Mike Oddie stretched back in his seat and took a quick swig of bitter. “You see the problem is that we think of a premeditated murder as something brilliantly planned in advance by a cool mind, meticulously thought out, and so on. But this one wasn't like that. It was done by a man in a corner, a man thrashing around, not knowing what to do, uncertain how much was known about him, a man who committed murder because he didn't see what else he could do. . . . This steak and kidney pie is quite awful—all gravy. Are the other things awful too?”

“Quite disgusting,” they all agreed.

“I obviously chose the right place,” said Oddie with satisfaction, and looking around the dimly lit interior. “Almost deserted. A pub lunch has to be really rotten to get so few takers. Where was I? Right—with Kevin Phelan. There was another slight oddity here that struck me. Say Kevin Phelan
did
go to Dr. Pickering, as he insisted. Why didn't Pickering tip the wink to us at the time? The case of the burning-out of the Pakistani family was front-page
news and there was general shock: The mother of the family and one of the children were killed. There really was a feeling of shame and revulsion. Pickering didn't have to break any oath and say ‘Kevin Phelan came to me today with burned hands.' It could have been ‘Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a look at young Phelan?' That's the sort of tip-off he'd given us in the past. Because the fact is Pickering was known for his helpfulness to the police—very much more helpful than some of his colleagues, I can tell you.”

“Do you think that helpfulness was in itself suspicious?” Margaret asked.

“As a sort of advance insurance, in view of his activities? That may be so, though, of course, we never suspected anything of the sort. Anyway, he tipped us no wink about Kevin Phelan. And the reason, I'm sure, was that he already felt on uncertain ground in his dealings with the Phelan family.”

There was a moment's silence.

“Because of June,” Selena said.

“Exactly. Because both were involved with the Carrock business, one as child prostitute, one as customer. How specific his fears were I don't know. Whether he thought she'd seen him with one of the other children, whether he was afraid the girls talked among themselves, whether Mrs. Hobbs had made the ghastly mistake of introducing him to one of his own patients—there could be any number of reasons for his fear. June, the silly cow, is saying nothing, like Madam herself, so we can't know for certain. But I am sure that Pickering knew that June was for a time one of the ring—that was common knowledge around the Estate—and I'm sure he was afraid that June knew about him.”

“So when Kevin came along,” said Malcolm, “there was no question of shopping him, for fear of Phelan reprisals. And when you asked him, he was caught on the hop.”

“That's right. Afraid we might say ‘You could have given us a hint,' so—thrashing around, like I said—he lied and said yes, Kevin had been, but he'd seen someone else. But then, of course, he was in a desperate corner, because by then he
knew
one of the Phelan family was on to his activities, and he'd tried to wipe her out and had failed.”

Malcolm Cray shivered.

“I remember we discussed this early on, and I assumed that whoever did it chose that night because he knew some members of the family would be away. I couldn't have got it more wrong, could I?”

“No. The member he planned to get wasn't there. But he—childless, and not living locally any longer—was not likely to know she would be away on a school theatre expedition. I think we could have been a bit sharper about Cilla as the intended victim from the start. We were blinded by the abundant awfulness of Jack Phelan. But we did register that Cilla had the little box room leading off from the hall as her bedroom. Right at the center of the
fire. And who was likely to know she'd moved there, apart from her family and doubtless her best friend?”

“Her doctor,” said Margaret.

“Michael told me Cilla had been off school recently,” said Selena. “Bronchitis, I think he said.”

“Right. Pickering knew where she slept. I think he wanted to get as many members of the family as possible—that's what makes this case so shocking. I think the more he got the safer he would feel. But the prime target was Cilla.”

“What exactly happened the day the Phelans went to The Hollies?” asked Margaret.

“There we have to guess, though we have one hard fact to go on. It's not possible to frighten Cilla into telling the truth now—if it ever was—by telling her she's at risk. She knows Pickering is dead, and she is both a secretive and a stupid child. What we can be quite sure happened is that she came well ahead of the main phalanx of Phelans, went up to the front door, then disappeared down the steps to the flat. After that is guesswork. Obviously the curtains must have been imperfectly drawn. I can't believe Pickering would have left lights on—though people sometimes behave incredibly stupidly in that sort of situation. She was gone some time, so I suspect she found the chink in the curtain, and peered until her eyes were accustomed to the gloom. That would have been in character. She knew exactly what was going on, of course. She was a Phelan. She recognized Pickering, and possibly recognized the child he was with—we don't know it would have been a little girl, by the way, but the wife said it would. What we do know is that he was telephoned at home two days later by a child.”

“Cilla?”

“Almost certainly. The wife took it, the child was very insistent she speak to the doctor himself. After he'd taken it Pickering was very upset, though he tried to hide it. He said it had been one of his patients whose mother was ill, but his wife said he'd said very little to the child, and didn't go out to anyone afterward.”

“It was then he conceived the plan?”

“Yes. By then he was already aware of the furor in Wynton Lane about the prospect of the Phelans moving in. He knew no more about the size of the pools win than anybody else. At first he may have thought that this was ideal—that it provided a plethora of suspects. But a moment's consideration must have told him that it could be fatal: Police interest in Wynton Lane could embrace Mrs. Hobbs, and then questions might be asked about why he'd let her have the flat, what connection there was between them. He could have shifted her out hurriedly, but that in itself would have aroused
suspicion. The safest way was to make the killing as un-Wynton Lane as it possibly could be.”

“Everyone seemed to want to suggest it was a working-class way of killing,” said Sergeant Stokes.

“That's right. Bloody nonsense, of course! It really got my goat! The most you could say was that it was a National Front horror tactic, and most of the Front activists tend to be working class. Quite apart from the fact that this could have been a ploy to make us look anywhere but the correct direction. No, as I say, that riled me, and when I thought about it, thought back to the early days after the fire, it wasn't just the Wynton Lane people who jumped in with that suggestion: One of the first who'd taken that line had been Pickering. He'd been as quick to suggest it was a working-class crime as Kevin Phelan had been to accuse the people in Wynton Lane.”

“In other words, it was all a rather desperate improvisation,” suggested Margaret.

“Yes. Looking back at the talk I had with him the day after the fire I could trace the improvisation. First he clung to the possibility—he must have realized how remote that was—that the fire might be accepted as accidental. He didn't mention the Wynton Lane angle until I brought it up, then he gave me a full account of what he knew I could find out for myself. Then when I told him it seemed to have been deliberate he immediately latched on to ‘Paki-bashing' and the working-class crime nonsense. I remember thinking at the time it was a pretty unintelligent line for someone of his experience to take. Thrashing around, you see.”

“Do you think he realized how desperate his position was?” asked Malcolm.

“Yes. The gun in the filing cabinet shows that he knew the thing was poised on a knife edge. His strength was that we had no reason to connect him with the anti-Phelan campaign in Wynton Lane: He'd moved away, and he'd been notably unsympathetic when canvassed. His weakness was that if we got wise to who Valerie Hobbs was, we were going to start asking questions about how she came to be there.”

“He had seen patients the morning he died,” contributed Selena. “He may have heard gossip from one of them about Mrs. Hobbs being taken for questioning.”

“Yes, he may have. There's not much has happened in Wynton Lane or on the Belfield Grove Estate over the last few weeks that hasn't been observed and commented on. If he heard, he could have been almost sure his number was up. But, in any case, I would guess that revolver had been there at least since the murder. Pickering was an intelligent man. He knew he was doing a makeshift job to avoid exposure and ruin, not a well-planned one. He must have realized that in the long run the odds were stacked against him.”

“I know a policeman shouldn't say this,” said Malcolm Cray, emptying his glass, “but I can't find it in me to regret that he managed to kill himself. His life in jail would have been unspeakable. I found I couldn't regret Phelan's death, and I'm afraid I can't regret Pickering's either.”

“I'm inclined to agree,” said Oddie. “And the fact is, we have two very satisfying cases coming up. With information we got from Waley we should be able to put Mrs. Hobbs away for a time, and we'll keep a very close eye on her once she comes out. And Jason Mattingley has been well-advised in Apsely Jail and has spilled the beans very comprehensively on Kevin Phelan, as I suspected he would. The problem with choosing someone very bullyable as your sidekick is that when the other side gets hold of him they can bully him too. We'll have young Kevin on charges of murder, extortion by intimidation, and much else besides. He'll be away for years.”

Oddie looked at his watch.

“Heavens, is that the time? I'd best be getting back.” He put his hand on Margaret's shoulder. “Come on. I'll walk you back to the station.”

But it was not to be yet. As she got up, Margaret looked toward Selena Cray and saw that she had suddenly clutched the edge of the table and was looking up at her husband.

“Malcolm—don't panic, but I think it's starting. Could you get me to the Infirmary?”

So it was half an hour later, after Selena had been admitted, and after Malcolm and she had been waved off to the labor ward, that Margaret and Oddie started to walk back toward police headquarters.

“Nice to be in at the beginning of something,” said Margaret.

“Yes,” said Mike Oddie, and took her arm.