Backhand Smash Read online

  Chadwick stared dispassionately at what had brought him here so early on a Sunday morning. ‘The pathologist will give you something definite and official, when he’s applied his rectal thermometer and whatever else he brings to prod with and when he’s measured the progress of rigor. But I’d be amazed if this man did not die last night. Some time during the early hours of today, I’d say.’

  Clyde Northcott spoke for the first time. ‘The dance went on until one o’clock. I was here until then. Fitton came late, but he was still here at the end. My guess would be that he died in the hour after one. Someone was obviously waiting for him in his car.’

  ‘Steady on!’ said Peach with some enjoyment. He turned to Chadwick. ‘These raw lads still make assumptions, Jack, the way they did in your time.’

  ‘I seem to remember you being a rather raw young lad, in my time,’ said Chadwick wryly. He liked the big black man who was so anxious to learn – not as much as the curvy, green-eyed young Lucy Blake whom he’d replaced as Percy’s bagman, but that was for other, entirely unprofessional reasons. ‘Percy means that you can’t just assume that the victim was ambushed. These might have been people known to him, whom he invited willingly into his car. Or they might have been waiting here and given him no choice but to admit them – if they’d ordered him around at gunpoint, for example.’

  Northcott nodded. ‘You said “they”. Do you think more than one person was involved in this killing?’

  Chadwick grinned. ‘Now you’re asking the right questions, Clyde. Searching ones.’

  ‘Obvious ones, more like,’ said Percy sourly.

  Chadwick said loftily, ‘It’s impossible to give you a definite answer on that. All we can be certain of is that someone has occupied the passenger seat of this vehicle quite recently. Possibly last night, but not certainly last night – it could have been earlier. It’s possible that Jason Fitton was talking to someone beside him when someone in the rear seat threw that cord round his neck and killed him very swiftly. But it’s equally possible that the person in the rear seat simply took his victim by surprise. The car was in darkness: it would have been perfectly possible to crouch down and conceal yourself as the unsuspecting victim approached, then spring into action once he had installed himself in the driving seat. Or Fitton might even have been accompanied to the car by someone friendly to him, someone quite innocent of this crime, who subsequently fled and who has not so far presented himself as a witness.’

  ‘Or herself,’ said Northcott dutifully.

  ‘Or herself, indeed. We may never know the full facts of the matter.’

  ‘We’ll know,’ said Peach with determination. ‘We’ll know everything that happened in this car. Everything we need to put someone away for this.’

  Chadwick looked at the pair with affection. He’d known Percy Peach since he was a raw recruit. He’d put a few backs up, had Percy, then and now. But he got results. Honest results. And he was passionate about putting villains away. He lived his professional life to do that. ‘We’ve dusted all the handles, but we haven’t come up with any prints, except Fitton’s. Whoever else was here last night wore gloves.’

  ‘Which suggests premeditation on a summer’s evening,’ said Peach slowly. ‘You wouldn’t expect anyone to be wearing gloves.’

  ‘I’m sure no one who’d been to the summer ball would have put gloves on,’ said Northcott. He glanced across at the clubhouse and the now deserted dance floor. ‘It was very hot in there. I was glad to get out.’

  ‘That’s the kind of observation I get from this bugger,’ said Peach to Chadwick. ‘He’s really sharp-eyed when it comes to observation.’ He turned back to Northcott. ‘You said Fitton arrived late. At least you were aware of something other than PC Brockman’s tits. Did you see Fitton having an argument with anyone?’

  ‘No. He was rather like Hafeez. He seemed to be mounting some kind of charm offensive, particularly where the women were concerned.’

  ‘Enough to make some jealous big-server follow him to his car and sling a cord round his neck, was it?’

  ‘Not what I saw. He wasn’t trying to get off with any particular woman. He was putting himself about to be charming, not offensive. It was a bit superficial, I suppose. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to him, but he seemed anxious to be pleasant to the men as well as the women. He certainly didn’t lay hands on any women inappropriately, not whilst I was watching him.’

  Peach looked at Chadwick and cast his eyes towards the heavens. ‘That’s the kind of language we have to use now, Jack. People don’t grab a feel or goose women. They “touch them inappropriately”.’

  ‘Or men, sir. They can be touched inappropriately as well nowadays, if they’re lucky,’ Northcott pointed out. ‘Or unlucky, of course, depending on your point of view.’

  ‘This sod was unlucky,’ said Peach, nodding towards the corpse in the vehicle. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard quite a lot about Jason Fitton, Jack.’

  Chadwick looked sympathetically at Northcott and nodded. ‘From what I’ve heard of him, there’ll be plenty of people rejoicing when they hear the news today. I’m sure if Fitton was doing anything offensive, it wouldn’t have been on public display for you to see. You’ve questioned him with Percy here about his past villainies, so he’d be conscious of your presence in the place last night. He wouldn’t miss you, would he? You’re sort of … well, noticeable.’

  Northcott grinned. ‘I like that word, “noticeable”. I must remember it. It’s more acceptable than “You can’t miss him; he’s that great big black bastard”, which is what I usually get.’

  Peach sighed. ‘I shall take the useless great lummox away now, Jack. You can see how standards are going down. I look forward to receiving your further observations along with the PM report in due course. When the pathologist finally deigns to turn up, that is.’

  EIGHT

  ‘Thank you for seeing us at such short notice, Mr Walmsley. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Peach and this is Detective Sergeant Northcott.’ He rolled the ranks out like a man setting the sights on a rifle. ‘Apologies again for coming here at Sunday lunchtime. We wouldn’t do that if this wasn’t an urgent matter.’

  Peach was watching the man, even as he made the routine apologies. He looked a pillar of rectitude and what little they knew of him so far said that Robert Walmsley was just that. But you never knew what you might turn up if you kept an open mind. ‘I’m sorry to say that we are the bearers of bad news, Mr Walmsley. We often are, I’m afraid. It’s one of the penalties of working in CID.’

  This man didn’t look particularly penitent, despite the apologies, Bob Walmsley thought. Peach wasn’t what he’d expected in a senior CID man. He was short and bald and round-faced, with a small toothbrush moustache which was as black as the fringe of hair he retained. He had an air of restless energy, accentuated by the fact that the big black man who accompanied him was so still. Both of them appeared to be watching him intently, though they could surely have nothing against him. Bob felt ridiculously defensive as he said, ‘I think we’d better go into the dining room. We won’t be disturbed there.’

  They went into a silent, plainly infrequently used room at the front of the big detached house, where they sat on upright chairs on opposite sides of a large oak table. As near to a police interview room as you could get in a private house, Percy thought. He liked that: he wasn’t a man given to putting people at ease, unless he sensed genuine distress. He wasn’t anticipating real grief and the pain that accompanied it here. Robert Walmsley’s relationship with the dead man, though of long standing, had been a working rather than a private one. He looked as if he was in his late fifties and unlikely to give way easily to displays of emotion.

  ‘There’s no point in trying to wrap this up, Mr Walmsley. We’ve come here to tell you that your employer died suddenly last night.’

  ‘Derek Fitton? There must be some mistake. He died some years ago.’

  ‘That was your original employer. You present employ
er is – was – Jason Fitton.’

  Walmsley had been realigning his chair so that it would be exactly opposite them. He slumped on to it heavily now, his face riven with shock. ‘Young Mr Fitton? But I saw him a week ago. He was in good health then.’

  ‘He was in good health twelve hours ago, Mr Walmsley. He’s dead now. We’re treating it as a suspicious death. Hence our presence here at this moment.’

  Walmsley was silent for a second or two. Then he said dazedly, ‘I was his managing director at Fitton Metals.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here, sir. You are the senior man in his company. You’re in a position to tell us all sorts of things about him.’

  ‘I don’t know him that well. I knew his father much better than I know Jason. I should say “knew”, shouldn’t I? This is all such a shock to me, you see.’

  ‘I appreciate that. Why didn’t you know him as well as you knew his father?’

  He gulped a little, his prominent Adam’s apple lurching visibly in his throat. ‘Sorry. I’ve never had to think about that before. You must think me very stupid. I’m usually quicker than this; I suppose I’m in shock. Well, I suppose it helped that Derek Fitton and I were much nearer to each other in age. Derek was older than me, but not that much older. About ten years, I think – he died relatively young, you see. And we sort of developed the firm together. Fitton Metals was quite small when I first began work in the yard. Scrap metals of all kinds, but mainly steel, were all sorted in one place, in those days.’ For a moment, his face brightened with the memories of those happy, busy, exciting times.

  ‘So you had a close relationship with the original owner of the firm?’

  ‘Very close. Mr Fitton was the entrepreneur who made the deals that took us forward and enabled us to grow. I flatter myself that I had the vision to see the possibilities of new technology. We took the opportunities to recycle what had been mere scrap into valuable, reusable materials. They were stirring times: we trebled our profits and almost doubled our workforce in five years. It was good for us and it was good for the town.’

  Walmsley’s face, which had been frozen with shock at their news, became animated and expressive as he recalled those best of days. Peach brought him abruptly back to the matter in hand. ‘It’s a family firm. You must have known Jason Fitton, even in those days.’

  ‘I did, but not as a presence in the firm. He was away at school during our most rapid years of growth. His dad was really pleased to be able to send him to one of the best public schools. It meant in his own mind that he’d made it. Derek was delighted to be able to tell his friends that he’d sent his lad off to Eton, where the toffs and the politicians go.’

  ‘And Jason took over the firm when his father died.’ Peach was watching closely for some sort of reaction.

  ‘He did, yes. There’d been talk of us becoming a limited company, with a proper board and shareholders. Derek Fitton was ready to take that on, but he died quite suddenly.’

  ‘And his son ruled against it.’

  ‘Yes. He said he might review the decision in a few years’ time, but he wanted for the present to keep control in the family’s hands.’

  ‘Which meant his hands.’

  ‘Yes. He was an only child. He had complete control.’ Bob was trying to speak evenly, but a tinge of bitterness edged into the phrase.

  Peach said quietly, ‘You sound as if your relationship with the younger Mr Fitton was much more strained than that with the original owner.’

  Bob Walmsley looked hard at him. He was no fool. On this bright Sunday morning, he wanted to pretend that things had been better than they really had between him and the man they had just told him had died in suspicious circumstances. But he knew that the business of these men was detection; they were going to find the true facts of the situation in the next few days. If they felt that he’d tried to deceive them, they would want to know the reason why. ‘I suppose it was inevitable that we’d have a few problems. I’d enjoyed what, in retrospect, were certainly the best days of the firm. Growth is always exciting, and although Derek Fitton had done the best of all of us out of it, I had no complaints. I never thought when I came here that I’d end up as managing director, on a fat salary and with generous bonuses. Jason is – was – the new generation. It was inevitable that he would see things differently.’

  ‘He wasn’t as single-minded as his father, was he?’

  This man Peach was leading him on, offering him chances to denigrate the dead man. Was he merely seeking information or setting some sort of trap? Bob wished he had more experience of this kind of questioning. He was used to interviewing candidates for jobs and putting them through the mill. It was a long time since he had been questioned himself; he wasn’t used to feeling so uncertain. It was many years since he had needed to pick his way so carefully through what suddenly felt like some sort of minefield. ‘No. Single-minded is quite a good word for it, I suppose. Fitton’s Metals had been the be-all and end-all for his father – and for me, I suppose. Jason had wider interests, other concerns.’

  Peach grinned unexpectedly, the round face creasing into a disc of pleasure. He turned his face for the first time away from Walmsley and towards his colleague. ‘We know something about those other interests, don’t we, DS Northcott?’

  ‘We do indeed, sir. They’ve been a source of enduring interest to the Brunton CID section over the last few years.’

  Walmsley said stiffly, ‘I don’t know anything about his other concerns. I confined myself to what I know and what I can control here.’

  Peach’s smile grew even wider, when that had not seemed possible. ‘Very wise, sir, I’m sure. Whereas we were very interested in Jason Fitton’s other businesses, in Brunton and in other parts of the north-west.’

  ‘I know nothing about those.’

  ‘Oh, come, Mr Walmsley, you’re an intelligent man. Far too intelligent not to have heard rumours at least of the money he was making away from Fitton’s Metals.’

  ‘I heard rumours, yes. It’s impossible not to if you move amongst the local business community. I take care to gather as little knowledge as possible about Mr Fitton’s other activities.’ His lips set with a Puritan thinness.

  He’d hesitated for a fraction of a second over his selection of the last word, and Peach was glad to show with another beam that he recognized the careful choice. ‘You were very wise to have nothing at all to do with those “activities”, Mr Walmsley. I should have wanted them at the longest arm’s length I could contrive if I’d been in your shoes. But, of course, the man was your employer, so there were limits to how much ground you could put between you and him.’

  Bob gave him a tight smile but held his peace. The less he said about his relationship with Jason Fitton the better. ‘I didn’t know and didn’t wish to know about the other things that occupied Mr Fitton when he was not here.’

  ‘How often was he here?’

  ‘Not very often.’

  This time Peach’s smile was grim rather than benign. ‘You’ll need to do better than that, Mr Walmsley. We’re investigating a serious crime. We need to enlarge our knowledge of the victim, and you are a man ideally placed to help us.’

  ‘Not ideally placed. I didn’t see as much of him as you might expect. We had no social contact at all and he has appeared at the works very infrequently in the last year.’

  ‘How infrequently, Mr Walmsley?’ Peach stressed the repeated word as if it were a taunt.

  ‘Four or five times in the last six months. Certainly not more than half a dozen.’

  ‘Was that his only form of communication?’

  ‘He didn’t do emails. We’ve spoken on the phone a few times. Usually when I’ve rung him to ask for decisions or support.’

  ‘What kind of support?’ Peach was on to the word like a terrier pouncing on a rat, making Walmsley regret immediately that he’d used it.

  ‘Usually financial. The business continues to make money, but technology never stands still. You need inves
tment and modern plant if you are to stay ahead of the opposition.’ Bob heard himself repeating the phrases he had used many times before. He wondered if they sounded as stale to his listeners as they did in his own ears.

  ‘And did Mr Fitton offer you this support that you felt was needed?’

  ‘A measure of it. As I have told you, my relationship was nothing like as close as the one I had with his father, who was in the works almost every day and was as devoted to its progress as I am. Jason had other interests, other outlets for his investment. I understood that.’

  ‘Did you, Mr Walmsley? Or did you bitterly resent it? I think that in your shoes I would have gone for bitter resentment.’

  ‘We weren’t at daggers drawn, as you seem to think we were.’ Bob wished he’d chosen a different metaphor. ‘I’m sorry. I’m still in shock about this. Jason Fitton made it quite clear that he held the power and that he would make the important decisions, and I accepted that. He was content to leave the day-to-day direction of the firm in my hands, which I suppose is a sort of compliment. I would have preferred the more hands-on and committed approach I’d been used to from his father, but at least I felt that Jason trusted me to know and run the business without him at my elbow.’

  ‘How many people are employed at Fitton’s Metals?’

  ‘About a hundred and thirty in all, including drivers and ancillary staff. Not all of them are permanently on site.’

  ‘Would you describe the late Jason Fitton as a good employer?’

  It sounded strange, that description of the man as ‘late’. Strange and very final. Bob should have felt exultant, but he felt only a strange numbness. ‘Not as good as his father. But I think most people would say he was OK. We haven’t had to cope with redundancies, as many local firms have during the recession.’ ‘You’re not “most people”, Mr Walmsley. You are the most informed person available to us. Would your verdict on the man be “OK”?’