Stranglehold (17 page)

So the corpse stiffened into the parody of repose in which its murderer had placed it, with its hands set gently one on top of the other in its lap, while the police combed each street and lane of the quiet town of Oldford. No one thought in those first hours to extend the search those few miles further into Gloucester.

The body of Amy Coleford was covered with a light dew when it was found at six-forty by a pensioner walking his spaniel around the docks on this bright summer morning.

John Lambert, coming hastily into the CID section with his mind full of black thoughts, almost collided with the police surgeon. Don Haworth had already completed his brief report on the death before he went off to his morning surgery.

‘Killed by the same man as the other two?' said Lambert. He had already heard enough of this latest death to assume it was murder.

‘Almost certainly. The same method, certainly. The bruising on the throat is identical with the other two. It's almost as though he took a pride in making it so.'

‘Time of death?'

Haworth shrugged. ‘Last night. Impossible to be more precise than that at this stage. It's a pity she wasn't found earlier. The PM might give you something, but I doubt whether it will be able to point up more than a three or four hour period. It's a shame I couldn't have got to her last night: I could probably have pinpointed the moment for you then.'

Lambert nodded at the young, eager face. It was good to have a man who thought in terms of the problems they had to meet. ‘No other significant medical evidence at the scene, I suppose.' He might as well use the enthusiasm and energy of this helpful medical man if he could.

‘Afraid not. Rather like the other two in that. It will be interesting to see if your Scene of Crime boys come up with anything in the way of fibres on the body. I couldn't see anything when I examined her. I'm sure you'll find your man wore plastic gloves again.' Haworth looked down at his own well-manicured hands, which before long would be examining living flesh, trying to prolong life rather than establish the reasons for death.

‘Thank you, Doctor. We'll keep you in touch with any developments. And if any further thoughts occur to you, please pass them on to us. We need all the help we can get with this one.'

He was treating the police surgeon almost as a member of his detection team, but he had known medical men in his time who could be as surly and uncommunicative as defence lawyers, a breed notoriously obstructive to CID work.

Meantime, they had better check quickly on their suspects for the previous two killings.

Kemp was in his office in Bristol when they tracked him down. In this place, he was Charles Kemp, entrepreneur and industrialist; Charlie Kemp, man of the people, was strictly for the more public context of Oldford Football Club and the columns of the
Echo.

In happier times Lambert might have enjoyed the discomfiture of Charles Kemp, but this morning he had neither the time nor the inclination to savour it. He glared at the two heavy, muscular men who stood like Tweedledum and Tweedledee on each side of the door of Kemp's inner sanctum as he passed between them with Bert Hook. They were Hollywood heavies; like so many of the things with which Kemp surrounded himself, they carried the air of an earlier era, when films were made on celluloid and there were long queues outside a thousand Odeon cinemas. No doubt their fists were real enough; he wondered what other armoury they carried beneath the suits which sat so awkwardly upon those wide shoulders.

Kemp gestured widely at the chairs opposite his desk. ‘No doubt you are pursuing your inquiries into the death of Amy Coleford,' he said. With the sharp thrill of the hunter, Lambert noted that he knew the name and wondered if there was significance in that. As if he read the thought, Kemp said, ‘Her name was given out on Radio Wyvern as I drove here.' His smile became a taunt.

Mrs Price, thought Lambert. The police hadn't released the name of the latest victim, but there was no defence against a babysitter with a taste for melodrama. ‘Curious that you should remember the name. Not many people would have done so – unless, of course, it already meant something to them.'

Kemp smiled. These palookas – he treasured that word – had gone straight down the avenue where he had directed them. ‘Oh, but it did, you see. I knew the girl from the
Roosters.
Not well, of course, but I knew her.' In this small moment of triumph, he must be careful not to overplay his hand.

‘I see. There seem to be no signs of resistance on the corpse, Mr Kemp. That might indicate, of course, that she was killed by someone she knew. Someone she was not expecting to attack her.'

Kemp thought that Amy Coleford would scarcely have regarded him as a friend. He remembered how he had reviled her and sent her weeping from his private suite at the
Roosters.
But these men knew nothing of that meeting, and now they must not even suspect it. ‘That's an interesting thought, Superintendent. But I didn't kill her.'

‘Where were you last night, Mr Kemp?'

It was too much to hope that an old hand like Kemp would be made nervous by Bert Hook's elaborate turning to a new page in his notebook in preparation to record his replies. He looked at the sergeant with a small, humourless, smile and said, ‘I don't have to answer that, of course. But I'll tell you; I'm always anxious to help the police.'

Hook raised his eyebrow's elaborately, but made no comment. Kemp, a little disappointed that he had not risen to the bait, said, ‘There's no problem about my whereabouts, you see. I was with my new Manager of Oldford Football Club.'

Not ‘our' but ‘my' new manager, they noticed. It was probably no more than a recognition of the real situation; the affluent Chairman ruled his board with a rod of iron in many clubs nowadays. ‘You were at the club?'

For the first time, Kemp looked uneasy. ‘No. We were in a pub. We haven't announced his appointment officially yet, you see, and –'

‘Where was this pub, Mr Kemp?'

Kemp's narrowed brown eyes looked from one to the other of the impassive faces which confronted him. ‘It was in Gloucester.'

Lambert told himself there was no need to feel such satisfaction at this reply. It was probably no more than the prologue to a perfect alibi. He let the moment stretch watching Hook write with elaborate care in his notebook Without further prompting, Kemp said nervously, ‘It was the
Dog and Partridge.
There would be plenty of witnesses.'

‘One of them would interest us more than most, Mr Kemp. Your new Manager would be Victor Knowles, I presume?'

‘That's right. Vic has the charisma which an ambitious club like ours needs. He was a good player, of course, but more important than that, he knows the game through and through. He's been around, and managed some of the big clubs, and he'll bring us –'

‘I'm sure he will, Mr Kemp. Unless of course he's arrested on a murder charge.' Lambert shouldn't have spoken of one suspect to another like that, but he had been unable to resist the chance to deflate Kemp.

‘Vic Knowles? You must be joking!' Kemp couldn't get quite the contempt he wanted into his voice.

‘He may well be innocent, but we are certainly not joking. He was in the Oldford area on the nights when Julie Salmon and Harriet Brown were killed, and his account of his movements is not substantiated by any reliable witness in either case.'

Kemp looked astonished. Perhaps it really was the first time that he had known that Knowles had even been considered as a candidate for the murders. Lambert followed up while his opponent was still shaken. ‘In other words, he is in exactly the same situation as you, Charlie Kemp.' Kemp's surprise turned to anger. ‘You're trying to pin this on me? After I've done my best to cooperate? I'll have you know –'

‘We're not trying to pin anything on anyone. All I've said is that we've so far been unable to eliminate either you or Mr Knowles from our inquiries. It's interesting to us that you should be together in the vicinity of last night's killing. No more than interesting, at the moment.'

Kemp looked furious, but had enough sense to say nothing while his mind worked furiously. It was Hook who looked up from his notes to say formally, ‘And what time did you leave the Dog and Partridge, Mr Kemp?'

Kemp looked again at the two grim faces, wondering what the safe answer might be. He and Knowles could alibi each other, if he could get hold of him before the police got to him. But he couldn't rely on doing that. If he lied now and Knowles didn't support him ... ‘It must have been about ten o'clock, I think.' It had been earlier than that, but the staff in the pub restaurant wouldn't be able to be precise. And if what these buggers said was true, Knowles would surely realize it was in his own interest to stretch the time they were together as far as was possible.

‘And did Mr Knowles leave with you?'

‘No. We went our separate ways. We didn't want to be seen together until after the official press release about his appointment. The
Echo
is sending a photographer along to the ground tomorrow. Vic left just before me, by a different exit.'

‘And where did you go then?' Lambert, who was keeping silent while Hook rapped his series of factual questions at a man they both disliked, caught the slightest hesitation before Kemp said, ‘I went home.'

‘And could anyone confirm this?'

‘My wife might be able to. But I told you when we spoke at the
Roosters:
we have separate bedrooms.' He wondered if the wife who was still refusing to accompany him to the Masons would support him in this. Surely she would not let him down in anything so serious? He tried to dredge from his reluctant brain the law relating to wives testifying against their husbands.

Hook said relentlessly, ‘And what time did you arrive at your house, Mr Kemp?'

‘I – I couldn't be precise. I didn't know then that you lot would be badgering me, did I?' His confident affability had dropped away with their questions. ‘I suppose it would be some time before eleven.' He knew that he had left the pub at just after half past nine, but probably no one would be able to pin him to that.

‘Is there anyone who could bear witness to your movements after you had parted company with Mr Knowles'' Lambert made it sound like an accusation.

Kemp should surely have reiterated that he went straight home. Instead he said sullenly, ‘No. There's no reason why there should be, is there? What time was Amy Coleford killed?'

‘We couldn't possibly reveal that. With your intimate knowledge of police methods, you surely wouldn't expect us to.' Lambert felt a petty delight in his insulting reference to Kemp's previous brushes with the police. He certainly did not mean to reveal that they could not pinpoint the time of this death, perhaps would never be able to do so.

They had not sat down throughout this exchange. Urgency as well as hostility to this man had kept them standing. Lambert, preparing to leave, said, ‘Presumably you deny any connection with the killing of Mrs Coleford?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘Have you any reason to think that Victor Knowles might have killed her?'

For a moment, Kemp toyed with the idea of implicating Knowles in some way. It would get him off the hook, and there were plenty of other football managers around. But he rejected the idea. It was dangerous to be over-subtle. And besides, there was a part of him that resented any alteration to his plans as a result of police activity. He had researched Knowles's weaknesses well before approaching him to take the job; it might be a long time before he turned up anyone whom he could so easily dominate with his knowledge. He said, ‘No. I'm sure Vic wouldn't do any harm to anyone.'

Lambert waited until the door was open and the two gorillas outside could hear before he said, ‘Don't leave the area without informing us of your plans, Mr Kemp.'

DI Rushton left Darren Pickering alone in the airless cell of the interview room for ten minutes before he saw him. If the wait made the man a little more nervous, so much the better: he might well be a triple murderer, and this was no time for delicacy.

During those ten minutes, Christopher Rushton made his first attempt of the day to contact the wife who had left him. Once again, the bland voice of his mother-in-law in the high elocutionary style she reserved for the answerphone came back at him through the earpiece; it sounded like a deliberate mockery and he banged the instrument down in frustration. He sat very still for a moment, grinding his nails into the palms of his hands, cursing all women and the pain they brought to hardworking men. Then he summoned a detective-constable and went white-faced into the interview room.

Pickering wore a white T-shirt with ‘Ancient Order of Piss Artists' printed across the inches which stretched tightly over his chest. He didn't wait for them to speak. There's been another one, hasn't there? And you want to pin it on me.'

Rushton did not even look at him. He pressed the button on the recorder and said to the instrument, ‘Interview with Darren Pickering began at 10.13 hours on Friday 17th June. Present were DI Rushton and DC Muirhead.' Then he looked sourly into the broad features opposite him, willing the man to lose his rag, to say something, anything, which might be indiscreet. Indiscretions usually led on to more significant revelations in interview rooms.

Perhaps Pickering understood that, or something of it. He said more quietly, ‘Who was she?'

Rushton said, ‘Where were you last night, Mr Pickering?' It was the last time he would give this thug that tide: he always liked to use it once, so that his courtesy to the suspect might be recorded.

Fear passed like a summer cloud across the tough young face. ‘I was at home. At first, that is. Then I went for a burn on the bike.'

‘You have a motorbike?'