A Killing Kindness (32 page)

'You must have expected an outcry immediately,' said Pascoe.

'I suppose so. I never really thought about it,'  said Greenall. 'I just got back to the Club, went on  as normal. And when I read in the
Evening Post
the  next day about the girl being found in the canal,  I was puzzled but somehow not surprised. And I  was worried in case people wouldn't understand.  So I phoned the paper again.'

'I meant to ask, why did you phone the first  time?'

'Just to explain in a way,' said Greenall. 'Just  so that it would be understood that these killings weren't meaningless. It seemed important.'

'And
Hamlet?'

'It seemed apt. It just came to mind.'

'Why not just go to see the reporters, talk to them, tell your story?' wondered Pascoe ingenuously.

'But that would have meant giving myself up!' exclaimed Greenall. 'I wasn't ready for that.'

'No,' said Pascoe. 'You were quite determined  not to be caught. As Pauline Stanhope could testify. If she were alive.'

'Yes,' said Greenall. 'Yes. Her. And the man, Wildgoose; it happened so quickly . . . both of  them ... a pilot's trained to make quick decisions  you see . . . but afterwards time isn't so quick . . .  not when you think...’

Now his narration once more lost its complacent, reasonable rhythm. Now once more the hesitation and uncertainties became apparent. Pottle had been right. It was here he felt the guilt, here  where he had killed to protect himself rather than, as his delusion asserted, to protect the girls. His  justification was the immediacy of the need. He  had seen the transcript of the seance tape, read in  the paper that the medium was Madame Rashid at the Charter Park Fair, driven there instantly with no plan, gone into the tent, asked Pauline if she  were Madame Rashid, punched her in the belly  and killed her. Now self-preservation had at last made him cunning. Seeing the
B
ACK
S
OON
sign,  he had put it on the chair and pushed it through  the flap before removing and putting on the gypsy  skirt, shawl and headscarf.

'You also laid the girl out like the others. And made a phone-call,' observed Pascoe.

'Yes, I thought it might confuse things . . . and I  felt I
should
say something ... I wasn't happy . . .  and then it turned out she wasn't the woman at  all . . . Christ. I felt ill.'

'But you didn't try to do anything about the real Madame Rashid after that, did you?' queried  Pascoe.

Greenall shook his head almost indignantly.

'I couldn't . . . not
plan
it . . . not cold-bloodedly . . .'

Dalziel's going to love this, thought Pascoe.

Greenall recovered some of his composure to talk about Andrea Valentine whom he had overheard boasting to her friends at the disco that as  soon as Wildgoose got rid of his wife, he was going  to marry her.

'Did you follow them back to Danby Row?'  asked Pascoe.

'No. I cleared up here and then went later. I had  no plan, you understand. Just to look.'

'How did you know where to go?'

'I rang for their taxi,' said Greenall. 'Wildgoose gave me the address.'

That simple. No wonder he felt that he was merely an instrument of some benevolent and  protective force. His path must have seemed to  be smoothed out before him all the way.

He had driven by the house, round the block,  spotted the back lane, found the rear entrance to number 73 and stepped inside just in time to  meet Wildgoose coming out. The man had grabbed  him. Brokenly, Greenall disclaimed any wish to  hurt him.

'But he saw my face ... it was dark but not that  dark ... I could see he recognized me ... so I had  to . . . again . . .'

Distressed though he was by this unlooked-for  killing, it did not deter him from his main purpose. He went up to the house. There was still  a light on in the kitchen. He tapped at the back door. 'Who's there?' asked the girl but was so sure that it must be Wildgoose returning for some  reason that a muttered 'It's me,' had her turning  the key.

'And then you killed her,' said Pascoe. 'But why?  I mean she couldn't be going to get married, could she? Not when you'd just killed the man she was  going to marry!'

Greenall hid his face in his hands.

'Don't you think I haven't thought of that?' he  said. 'Even as she died, I thought of it. But I had  to kill the man, you see. He knew me. I
had
to kill him.'

He spoke pleadingly as if seeking approval, or absolution. Pascoe was very willing to give him  whatever he sought as long as he got his signature  at the bottom of every page of the statement he  was scribbling.

'Yes, I see that,' he said. 'I quite see that.'

'Do you? Do you really?' asked Greenall.

'I do,' assured Pascoe. 'I really do. Then you took the body to your car?'

The maniac's luck had held. No one had interrupted him. The idea of burying Wildgoose in the  rose field of the Garden Centre had seemed like  a triumph of logical thinking. He had driven past  it from time to time since his wife's death and  observed that it was no longer open. It was ideal.

'I didn't want him found. I thought he might  get blamed, you see. It was going wrong. There was too much killing, too much
unnecessary
killing. I thought if you were looking for Wildgoose I  might get a bit of peace and quiet to do some  thinking in.'

Pascoe regarded the small, slight man who  returned his gaze trustingly and hopefully.

'I think we might arrange that, sir,' he said  gently. 'What I would like you to do now is . . .'

There was a perfunctory tap at the door and it burst open to reveal Sergeant Wield.

'Mr Pascoe,' he began.

'Later,' said Pascoe trying to combine the casual and the imperious in his tone.

'I'm sorry, sir, but . . .'

'I said
later,
Sergeant!' snapped Pascoe, abandoning his attempt at the casual.

But Wield stood his ground. 'We tried to ring,  sir, but there was no answer,' he said. 'It's your  wife.'

'What about her?' said Pascoe, standing up  now and facing the sergeant. Wield's features, he noticed with a tightening of the heart, were  softened to a recognizable anxiety.

'She's had to go to hospital, sir. They rang not  long after you'd left. Like I say, we tried to telephone here...’

'What's happened to her?' demanded Pascoe.

'I don't know, sir. But I knew how worried you'd  been, so I thought I'd better . . .'

Pascoe glance from the sergeant to Greenall  who was looking musingly out of the window,  as though none of this had impinged upon him.  Perhaps it hadn't. Perhaps Perhaps . . . but this  was no time to be perhapsing around here. Not  with Ellie ... oh Christ!

'Excuse me, Mr Greenall,' he said and pushed  Wield through the door, closing it behind them.

'Listen,' he said, putting the notebook into the  sergeant's hand's. 'It's him. It's all there. Get him  to read it. Get him to sign it. Every last bloody page. That first. That most certainly first. No pressing. No taking him down town. Do you follow me?'

'Yes, sir,' said Wield. 'And then?'

'Get his name on that and then you can put  him in irons for all I care,' snapped Pascoe. 'Do  it. I'm off.'

'I hope Mrs Pascoe's OK,' called Wield after him  but he doubted if the inspector heard.

Slowly he turned and quietly opened the door.

'Hello, Mr Greenall,’ he said.

Chapter 26

'And is that the verdict of you all?'

'It is,' said the foreman of the jury.

The Judge nodded and turned towards the figure  in the dock.

'Austin Frederick Greenall,' he began.

Outside the sun still looked down from clear  skies but it was no longer the burning orange of midsummer but the pale lemon of autumn. There were dry brown leaves from the municipal plane  trees patterning the steps of the court building as  Pascoe emerged. He thrust his hands deep into  his pockets and stared moodily at the medieval  guildhall across the way.

Wield came out behind him.

'I'm sorry, sir,' he said.

'Not your fault, sergeant,' said Pascoe. 'Even if  he'd signed that statement, it would probably have  been tossed out as inadmissible.'

'All the same . . .'

'Lawyers, I've shit 'em!' proclaimed Dalziel's voice. Pascoe looked round. The fat man looked as if he'd just emerged from a battle. In a way he  probably had.

'I had a word with that fellow prosecuting. Told him I'd seen better cases presented at the left  luggage.'

'What did he say, sir?'

'Threatened to report me. I said if he made complaints like he cross-examined, I'd likely get  promoted.'

'It
was
all circumstantial, sir,' defended Pascoe. 'When you got down to it, there was precious little  hard evidence.'

'There was enough, rightly put over,' said Dalziel.  'And I'd have cracked the bugger wide open if we'd  got another postponement.'

Pascoe and Wield exchanged glances.

Four months had passed. Dalziel had used every  delaying tactic in the book. There had been remands before the committal proceedings. Here there had been reporting restrictions imposed, not (as the  general public believed) to conceal horrors which  should not be allowed to fall twice on human ears but (as Wield cynically asserted) to conceal from the general public the flimsiness of the case. Fortunately (or not), examining justices are swayed  as much by police certainties as police evidence, particularly where crimes like the Choker's are involved, and Greenall had been committed for  trial, which should have commenced within eight  weeks according to law. Two postponements had been achieved, but even justice gets impatient and  on the threat of a writ of
habeas corpus
from the  defence counsel, the trial had gone ahead.

There had been only one charge - the wilful murder of Mary Greenall also known as Mary Dinwoodie. This was where the prosecutors felt at their strongest. They could prove motive and  opportunity. They could point to Greenall's record of breakdown, they could make great play of his odd behaviour in not coming forward after the  death. They could do many things except prove  that he was outside the Cheshire Cheese on the  night in question.

Defence challenged the admissibility of medical records, pointed out that Greenall had been performing a responsible and demanding job in civilian  life for more than three years without exciting any adverse comment, and tried to explain his silence  after his wife's murder by getting their client to  admit freely that he was dismayed and numbed  by the news and in any case had no reason to  believe the police wouldn't rapidly track down his connection with the dead woman. 'In the  event, he overestimated their speed and efficiency, but that is a fault we must lay at the door of  the investigating officers, not of my client,' said counsel for the defence blandly.

Desperately the prosecution had tried to bring the  linguistic evidence forward. Gladmann had put on his best suit ('the one stained with Beluga caviare,' said Pascoe) but his hopes of fame were dashed.

The
first
telephone call had not been made till  after the death of June McCarthy, argued defence. The first
recorded
telephone calls had not been made till after the death of Pauline Stanhope. To prove that any of those four voices was the same as the earlier voice would be difficult. But  that was beside the case anyway. Their client was  not accused of any of the subsequent killings.  Indeed, although the subsequent killings had some 
prima facie
connection in that they all involved young women, the murder of Mary Greenall or  Dinwoodie must be taken as distinct and separate, unless the police had concrete proof of a  connection.

The disposition of the body, suggested prosecution.

Very slight, replied defence, and explicable in terms of straightforward imitation. The Cheshire Cheese killing had been widely reported, after all.

The Judge before whom this argument had been conducted in the absence of the jury agreed with the defence. He wondered whether he should make his sternly rebuking speech about the waste  of the court's time now or save it up till after the  acquittal he now anticipated. In the event he never  made it. After all, it was the kind of thing that the  papers would quote gleefully if this fellow went  out of court free and then was found in the act  of strangling some other poor girl. You couldn't be  too careful. Judges were not accorded the respect  that was once their due, not even in obituaries.

In fact, he was surprised by how long the jury  took. Five hours. Prosecution hopes had begun to rise. But then they had filed back in, twelve good  men and true, and Austin Greenall had stood and  regarded them neither defiantly nor fearfully, and  nodded in quiet agreement as he heard the words 
Not Guilty.

'There he is,' said Wield suddenly.

Greenall emerged into the pale sunlight surrounded by reporters. They pressed and jostled around him but he moved steadily forward, the calm centre of their turbulence. He glanced across towards the group of policemen on the steps but  did not pause. Pascoe caught the words ‘. . get  back to work . . .' and then the slight, dapper  figure passed out of earshot and, soon after, out  of sight.

A reporter detached himself from the group as  they passed and said, 'Any reaction, Super?'

Pascoe said quickly, 'No comment.'

The reporter said, 'How's the Choker hunt going on? Is it true you're calling in the Yard? Or is it back to the crystal ball?'

'Same thing,' grunted Dalziel. 'They'll none of  'em work without their palms being crossed with  silver.'

'Can I quote that?' grinned the reporter.

'Quote what?' said Pascoe. 'Who said anything? On your bike, Beaverbrook.'

'They love it,' said Dalziel as the man moved  away. 'Seeing us look stupid. Bastards.'

'We won't look so stupid if he starts up again,'  said Pascoe.

'Is that likely, sir?' asked Wield.

'Pottle says that his motivation is unique in his experience. He reacted to the idea of a young girl  being spoilt by marriage, with the engagement ring acting as a kind of trigger. It's quite possible, he  says, that being held in custody'for so long will have effected a cure, given him time to think the  thing through and come to terms with it.'