Death Dues

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

IN SPITE OF THE DECEPTIVELY pretty name of Primrose Avenue, the road beside the alley where the murder had happened, contained nothing more decorative than weeds, of which there was a fine collection.

Not surprising really, given the torrential rain. Rafferty struggled to keep the umbrella aloft in the high wind as it was almost torn from his grasp. Primrose Avenue was in a run-down area of Elmhurst on the southern outskirts of the town, the houses mostly rented from the Council or from Buy-to-Let private landlords, with unofficial lodgers taken in to help pay the rent. Here lived Elmhurst’s low-end population: the single mothers, the unemployed and unemployable, people in their fifties unable to find work, pensioners, the chronically sick, and so on. The ‘deserving poor’, he supposed was how Llewellyn would describe them, if asked. But Rafferty had no intention of asking and inviting a lecture on this or any other subject.

The dead man had been attacked in the alleyway that ran behind the left-hand-side row of terraced houses. Both the alley and the houses ended in a high brick wall belonging to a canning factory, so were effectively cul-de-sacs.

Their cadaver had clearly been robbed, as Smales had confirmed there was no wallet or mobile phone on his body, nor any other means of easy identification. He lay, partially on his side. His face, from what Rafferty could see of it, bore a surprised look. He had been struck from behind, and then his attacker had continued to rain down blows on his head, though fortunately, they had mostly been to the back of his skull, so they should have less trouble identifying him than might otherwise have been the case.

Rafferty huddled into his thin raincoat and prayed for summer to arrive as he stared at the dead man’s face. He couldn’t but help think that this new investigation was somehow Llewellyn’s fault. If he hadn’t said that today looked likely to be quiet, maybe they wouldn’t be standing out in a howling gale with him doing a poor man’s rendition of Singing in the Rain. But without the singing. Or the dancing, unless the jig of his raincoat counted. ‘You know,’ he said to Llewellyn, a smidgeon of blame in his voice that he knew was unfair, ‘Lizzie Green thought the victim was a John Harrison who works for Malcolm Forbes. I think she's right.’ It was the confirmation he had feared ever since Smales’ phone call.

Llewellyn nodded. ‘I thought that, too.'

Malcolm “The Enforcer” Forbes, was one of the local loan sharks, a business he ran from the back room of his pawnbroker’s shop. ‘The victim's nicknamed “Jaws”, if I remember rightly. And not only on account of his gnashers.’ The large, protruding teeth, should have provided him with the dead man’s ID immediately. With such a face, he looked particularly suited to the job of loan shark’s gofer. His was a familiar face in the neighbourhood. John “Jaws” Harrison was something of a poacher turned gamekeeper. A man who had got deeply in debt to Malcolm Forbes, and who had offered his services to Forbes as a collector in order to pay them off. And as he was built like the proverbial brick outhouse with a face to match, his offer to demand money with menaces had been taken up.

‘Should have stayed in debt, mate,’ Rafferty advised the corpse. ‘You might have lived longer. There’s nothing worse than shitting on your own doorstep for breeding hatreds, especially when you work for someone like Forbes.’

He was so deep in thought that the fierce wind forced his umbrella inside-out, nearly poking Llewellyn’s eye out. He didn’t notice. Instead, he let the umbrella have its head, stared at the corpse and took in its appearance. Whoever had murdered this man had done a thorough job; the skull was visibly dented, with crusted blood congealed in the light brown hair. The victim was wearing thick black brogues and green corduroy trousers. His raincoat, a pale fawn, was rucked up under the body. It had absorbed water from the muddy puddles decorating the alley. Altogether, he looked a sorry corpse.

Llewellyn, after a brief glance behind him, suggested, ‘Perhaps we should let the Scene of Crime Team and the photographer in to do their work?’

It seemed like a good idea to Rafferty as he became aware of what a logjam had built up behind them: Lance Edwards, the photographer, Fraser, the fingerprints king, Adrian Appleby and his Scene of Crime team, were kicking their heels at the alley’s entrance, awaiting their turn at the cadaver and its environs. Before they knew it the usually tardy Dr Sam “Dilly” Dally would arrive and would expect proprietorship of the corpse and all its works. He’d seen enough anyway, and there was little, in all truth, for him to do at the scene. His job was with the witnesses and potential suspects.

They made their way back to the alley’s entrance and stripped off their protective gear. ‘He’s all yours,’ Rafferty told Lance Edwards as he folded up the broken umbrella, having lost the battle with the wind. He hefted the brolly, for a forgetful moment almost tempted to dump the useless thing. But then he caught Llewellyn’s gaze, and thought better of it. A big no-no at the scene, Rafferty, he told himself. Shame on you. A big no-no anywhere these days. And quite right, too. Keep Britain Tidy and all that. Instead, he found one of the newer members of the uniformed team, handed him the broken umbrella with the stern instruction, ‘Look after that.’ He caught Llewellyn’s eye on him again and grinned. ‘Well, it’s no use to me. I thought he had a resourceful look. Might be able to fix it.’

‘Better than discarding it at the scene, anyway.’

‘As if.’

‘Want me to get the house-to-house organised?’ Llewellyn asked, clearly deciding that one of them ought to get the show on the road.

Rafferty nodded. He glanced up the street to where a gaggle of shaven-headed youths stood on the corner, trying to look cool, and pretending to be impervious to the chilly weather in their bum freezer leather jackets and threadbare jeans. Rafferty wasn’t interested in being ‘cool’. Neither was he ashamed of showing weakness by shivering. It was bloody cold, after all. The youths had been there when he and Llewellyn had arrived. Perhaps they’d been there earlier when Jaws Harrison had turned up? If so, they must now be so ‘cool’ as to be frozen to the marrow, though he supposed the first one to admit it would be chicken.

He turned back to Llewellyn. ‘Once you've organised the house-to-house, get one of the spare uniformed bodies to put a crime tape around the end of the alley and the top of the Avenue, before we have day trippers gawping at our efforts. And put someone on to question those youths. Get their details. I don’t suppose we’ll get much else at this stage.’

After Llewellyn had gone off to do his bidding, Rafferty stood, taking in the scene. Now that he’d arrived to put a sting in uniform’s tail, the cordons were going across, and the erection of a tent over the corpse had begun. The scene of crime team had started a fingertip search of the alley. Someone had found a hedge trimmer a few yards up the alley from the body. Briefly, Rafferty wondered what it was doing there, and whether it had had anything to do with the murder. Along the short terraced cul-de-sac of fourteen houses, women were standing in little huddles, arms folded against the cold, taking everything in. Doubtless some had already had a good look at the body before the arrival of uniform. He hoped not too many of them had tramped all over his crime scene and contaminated it.

‘Who found the body?’ Rafferty asked PC Timothy Smales, the uniformed officer who had been first on the scene. Young Smales pointed to the area car where a man could be seen in the back seat, before he consulted his notebook. ‘Over there, Sir. Name of Eric Lewis. Lives at number four. There’s a bit of a discrepancy. He says he found the body between three and three-thirty, but it wasn’t rung in till five o’clock.’

Rafferty nodded, impressed. Young Smales was coming along just fine. One time, he wouldn’t have been able to supply such information so readily, let alone make a deduction from it. Now, the lad seemed a veritable Sherlock. ‘Well done, Tim. We’ll make a copper of you yet.’ Tim Smales’ youthful complexion still sported its bum-fluff. It still blushed red as a girl. Something else he’ll have to grow out of, Rafferty thought to himself. Still, he’s got plenty of time. ‘I’ll have a word.’

Rafferty, glad of an excuse to get out of the wind and rain that had yet to trouble Llewellyn’s neat coiffeur, walked over to the car and dropped into the back seat. ‘Mr Lewis? I’m Inspector Rafferty. I understand you found the body?’

Eric Lewis nodded, but added no further explanation. He was a stocky man of around the mid-forties, with heavy jowls and hardly any hair. Though he bore a remarkable look of television’s one-time TV cop, Kojak, he didn’t have the ever-present lollipop. Or the screen presence. Just an ordinary little man experiencing the extraordinary.

‘And this was around three to half past?’

This brought another nod.

‘I gather from one of my officers that it wasn’t rung in till five o’clock. Why the delay?’

Lewis said nothing for several moments, then: ‘I was in shock, wasn’t I? I wasn’t thinking straight. I could barely get my head around it.’

Rafferty, doubted the man had been so shocked that he’d been incapable of picking up a phone, and made a mental note to probe further after this initial interview. Lewis was hiding something. ‘Was he dead when you found him?’

‘I didn’t stop to look. But he must have been, to judge from the state of the back of his head. Caved in it was.’

Still is, thought Rafferty. Not a pretty sight, and him with a canteen lunch still sitting heavily. ‘Did you recognise him?’

‘Who? Me? No. Never saw him before in my life.’

That sounded unlikely to Rafferty, seeing as Eric Lewis lived in the street from where, according to Ma’s gossip, Jaws Harrison regularly collected.

However, for the moment, he didn’t press the point. His Ma only lived around the corner, and knew all the neighbours’ business better than they knew it themselves. He’d have a word with her later, and see what she could tell him about their current crop of neighbourhood suspects.

‘You live at number four, Mr Lewis, on the opposite side of the street, I understand?’ Lewis nodded. ‘I wondered what you were doing in that alleyway, seeing as it’s a dead end, and doesn’t lead anywhere apart from the back entrances to the houses on the other side of the Avenue.’

‘I borrowed a hedge trimmer from Jim Jenkins at number eleven, and was returning it. He’s a bit deaf and I knew he wouldn’t hear me if I knocked at the front. Spends most of his time in the back garden or the back room. He’s of the generation that keep the front room for “best’’,’ he added, as an afterthought.

‘My officers found a hedge trimmer close to the body. How did it get there?'

‘I must have dropped it when I saw the body. Maybe one of your lot will give it back to Jim.’

‘All in good time. Did you see anybody about when you found the body?’

‘Only a few kids and the yobs on the corner. They’re always hanging about and making a nuisance of themselves.’ A note of complaint entered Lewis’s voice. ‘We call your lot regular, but nothing’s ever done.’

‘I see,’ Rafferty said, unwilling to get started on that particular losing argument. ‘And these are the same yobs who were there when I arrived?’

‘Yeah. I told you, they’re always hanging about. Got nothing better to do than catcall everyone who passes them. The parents do nothing. Glad to get them out of the house probably, and have them torment someone else for a change.’

‘And you said they generally hang about at the end of the street?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So they probably saw anyone who entered the alley?’

‘I suppose.’

‘You don’t seem very sure.’

‘Told you. I’m in shock. Besides, I don’t want it getting back to them that I mentioned them at all. They can be nasty little bastards. Especially that Jake Sterling. He must be known to your lot. He spends his life causing trouble. His brother Jason’s no better.’

‘I see. You can rest assured they won’t hear anything about our conversation from me.’

‘Don’t need to, do they? They’ve all got eyes in their spiky heads. I saw them give me a few throat-slashing gestures when I got in the car. You were talking to that other copper at the time. Don’t suppose you noticed.’

Eric Lewis’s lack of confidence in the police was clearly deeply-entrenched. Still, Rafferty supposed, with yobs like Jake and Jason Sterling to contend with on a daily basis, the man was entitled to feel disgruntled. ‘Why would they threaten you? Do you think one or more of them might have something to do with this man’s death?’

‘Don’t know.’ He paused, then added. ‘I told you I didn’t know the dead bloke. How am I supposed to know if they had reason to bear him a grudge?’

Rafferty, by now tired of skirting around the subject, attacked it head on. ‘We know the identity of the victim, Mr Lewis. I’m surprised you don’t, seeing as he collected money from this street regularly.’ Rafferty could only hope his Ma’s gossip was accurate. But the thought that it was invariably spot on encouraged him. ‘Several of the street residents must have had reason to loathe the man. He wasn’t known as “Jaws” solely because of his appearance. It’s my understanding that his disposition wasn’t of the nicest to those unable to make their loan instalments. Perhaps you were one of them?’

‘No. Certainly not. I—I don’t get things on credit. If I can’t pay for something I do without.’

‘Very commendable.’ Rafferty wished he could say the same. Though it was a novel sentiment in these days, that were as loose on financial morality as they were on any other sort. The wedding quotes were still bugging him, of course. They’d end up thousands of pounds in debt if he didn’t take things in hand. But he did his best to forget his large, looming debts as he continued his interview. ‘We’ll have an officer checking with Jaws Harrison’s boss to get a list of those in the street who owed him money and were having difficulty repaying their loans. But you’ve said you won’t be on the list of debtors, so—’

Eric Lewis spluttered incoherently for a few seconds, his spluttering interspersed with the noise of rain lashing the car windows. He rubbed his bald head, then he blurted out, ‘All right. I admit it. I did take a loan out with Forbes. Only a small one, mind. Five hundred quid, and I’ve nearly finished paying it off. But then so did other people in the street, and most of them were in hock for much more than me, so don’t go pointing the finger in my direction when you look for your killer. It’ll be pointed in the wrong place.’

‘Oh? And what direction should it be pointed?’

But Lewis wasn’t to be drawn. He clammed up at the question. All he said was, ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? All I know is that it wasn’t me who killed him.’

‘Okay, Mr Lewis, That’ll be all for now. But stay in the car. We’ll need a formal statement. I’ll get one of my officers to drive you to the police station so you can give it.’

Eric Lewis looked alarmed at this. ‘Why do I have to go to the police station to give a statement? I’ve just told you what happened, haven’t I? All I did was find the body. I can’t say any more than that. I can’t see the point in a lot of rigmarole over it.’

Put like that, it did seem much ado about nothing. But, as he told Mr Lewis, they had procedures that had to be followed, and if he was lying, it was as well to get it on record with a signature attached. ‘It won’t take long. One of my officers will drive you back home afterwards.’

Lewis still seemed to think it was an invitation that was open to refusal, because he continued to prevaricate. ‘Well, I don’t know. The wife won’t like it. Wanted me to start the decorating today.’

Seeing as the day had been far advanced by the time Mr Lewis found the body, he hadn’t made a cracking beginning on the painting he was now so keen on. ‘Never mind,’ Rafferty said. ‘You can get an early start in the morning, can’t you?’

‘Suppose so. Though she still won’t like it.’

Rafferty looked out of the rain-lashed windscreen, steeled himself, and got out of the car, leaving Eric Lewis still peddling excuses. He hunched his shoulders against excuses and vile weather, both, called over one of the uniforms, and told him to drive Lewis to the station and find someone to take his statement. He trudged back towards the alley, fighting the strengthening wind all the way, and trying and failing to avoid the large puddles that had grown larger while he had been speaking to Eric Lewis, and which made the ends of his trousers uncomfortably soggy. He met Llewellyn coming the other way; Llewellyn, of course, had the wind behind him. To Rafferty’s irritation, Llewellyn’s umbrella was still holding its own against the elements that had turned his inside out. His trousers were also, somehow, free of puddle damage.

‘Got anything?’ Rafferty asked tersely, as he swallowed his irritation at his sergeant’s ability to stay looking smart whatever the weather or other people threw at him.

‘The youths claim they saw nothing. What about you? How have you got on?’

Rafferty pushed a hand through his dripping hair, and scowled. ‘I’ve got precious little. Though Mr Lewis, the man who I was just talking to, and who admits to finding the body and ringing it in, did tell me those lads were hanging about when he found the body. You got their details?’

Llewellyn bridled slightly at this. ‘Of course.’ He patted his pocket. ‘I also checked their claimed identities with a couple of the neighbours. Three of the youths supplied false names for reasons they preferred not to go into when I challenged them.’

‘Force of habit, probably. So which of them tried to be clever d***s?’

‘Jake Sterling, Des Arnott and Tony Moran.’

‘They the cocky looking trio in the leather jackets?’

‘The very same.’

‘Oka. What say we haul them all in for questioning? Maybe their little friend lacking the cool leather will be chattier without the cocksure threesome within earshot.’

‘On what charge?’

‘Fashion crime?’ Rafferty suggested, ironically. Because this was Llewellyn at his most pedantic. ‘Try a touch of lateral thinking, Dafyd.’ Then, with the recollection that the logical Llewellyn was still having trouble thinking in his own haphazard manner, he said, ‘Obstructing the police sounds favourite to me. Maybe also threatening behaviour, seeing as Mr Lewis said they made throat-slitting gestures at him. Should be worth a few hours of their time. How’s the house-to-house going?’

‘Most of the street residents have given preliminary statements, though not everyone was at home, so they’ll have to be followed up later. They're still searching the alley. We’re also questioning the residents of the houses that form a T-junction with Primrose Avenue. They might have seen something.’

‘Anyone admitted to seeing anything? Anything at all?’

Llewellyn shook his head. ‘Though, as I said, we have yet to question everyone.’ His hair was still dry, its style still immaculate, which made Rafferty feel even more irritated. After all, it had been Llewellyn who had tempted the fates.

Rafferty, already in an ill-humour and determined to think the worst, ignored Llewellyn’s last comment. ‘So we’ve got the proverbial see no evil and hear no evil. Great. I suppose it’s inevitable given the identity of the victim. All the people who owed money to Jaws Harrison’s boss will be glad to see the end of him and his heavy-handed tactics. Maybe Forbes’s next collector will be full of the milk of human kindness. Not.’

‘Most of the residents wouldn’t even admit to knowing Mr Harrison,’ Llewellyn said, raising his soft voice against the howling wind. ‘Stupid really as we shall shortly have records of the debtors in the street from Mr Forbes.’

‘Mm. Instinctive reaction I suppose. Speak first, in denial, and think about what you’ve said afterwards. No one wants to be connected to murder. Have you sent someone to get the debtor list from his office?’

‘I was just about to.’

‘Send Lizzie Green. Maybe her particular feminine touch will ease things along. Got a nice way with her has Lizzie.’ Plump in all the right places, Lizzie Green exuded the great aunt’s perfume of Lily of the Valley talcum powder, partnered by a Bardotesque pout. It was a killing combination that warmed Rafferty, even in the face of the stinging rain.

‘Anything else you’d like me to organise?’

‘Yeah. Get Lizzie to find out the victim’s address and his next of kin while she’s at Forbes’s office. We’ll need to go along once we’re finished here, and break the news. Oh, and give Dally a bell. See what’s keeping him. I’m keen to learn as quickly as possible if, our victim did or didn’t die in that alley. It would be good to reduce the potential suspects early in the game.’

Llewellyn walked off, clutching his mobile and his umbrella, still looking as pristine as at his arrival. Rafferty, by now so wet through that he felt he could get no wetter, resigned, planted his feet firmly as anchorage against the wind, and did some more studying of the location.

The cul-de-sac was made up of fourteen terraced houses, seven on each side of the road, with parking on the street. Each house had a tiny front garden separating it from the road. Two or three were well-kept, with pots of now battered and mostly petal-less spring bulbs brightening them, but the majority housed rusty bikes and weeds. The houses on the left backed on to the alley where the dead man had been found. Had he died there, Rafferty wondered again? Or had he been taken there after being killed elsewhere? And how come no one had seen anything? It was broad daylight, and although the street, owing to its dead end nature, would have lacked through traffic, there were still kids about, it being the Easter holidays, and women going to and from the local parade of shops. And what of the youths who claimed to have seen nothing? True, the dead man had been found between numbers eleven and thirteen – unlucky for some – around the bend in the alley, and out of their line of vision, but they must know roughly what time he had arrived in the street.

Was this killing merely an escalation in the violence of the previous muggings—or was it something more? A planned and deliberately executed killing? Could it be that a turf war had broken out among the local loan sharks? But if that was the case, Rafferty argued to himself, surely the murder would have been much showier, and designed to serve as a warning. Whoever did it, given the number and ferocity of the blows, had certainly been determined to remove Jaws Harrison from this world.