Backhand Smash Page 15

  Younis Hafeez’s smile diminished, but did not disappear. He was on his own ground and he had the advantage. He planned to retain it. ‘I shouldn’t need to remind you that no charges have ever been brought against me, Chief Inspector. That is because there was no substance at all in the spurious accusations which some spiteful people chose to make against me. I am only sorry that the police, and in particular the CID section at Brunton, chose to listen to squalid rumour and engage in interrogations that could only embarrass them. I’m sure that your Chief Superintendent Tucker would now support that view. Thank heavens that there is still such a thing as an enlightened senior policeman.’

  ‘We thank heaven each day for Chief Superintendent Tucker. His name is rarely off our lips,’ said Percy grimly. He looked round the spacious office, with its thick carpets, lavishly expensive furnishings and almost total absence of the normal business accoutrements such as a computer and filings cabinets. ‘We are not here to investigate the trafficking in underage girls and their enforced prostitution, which still interest us, but the very specific crime of murder. I hope that will be a relief for you.’

  ‘Since I am not involved in either of those totally reprehensible crimes, it will be a matter of total indifference to me, Mr Peach.’ He turned elaborately and graciously towards the man who sat alongside Peach in a matching low chair. ‘And Clyde, of course. I wouldn’t like Clyde to feel left out. Tea? Coffee? Biscuits and cakes? Something stronger perhaps? I shall not indulge myself, but I wish to offer whatever will emphasize to you how welcome you are here.’ He uncrossed his immaculately trousered legs and raised a hand, as though ready to click his fingers and summon whatever delights they chose.

  Peach was already irritated by this elaborate, mannered charade. But he knew that was the intention, so he maintained coolness and control as he said, ‘Refreshments will not be necessary, Mr Hafeez. Mr Jason Fitton was a business associate of yours, wasn’t he?’

  Younis maintained the carapace of oily charm which all three of them knew was but a pretence. ‘I knew the man. We were hardly business associates. I have no use for scrap metal, even in its recycled forms.’

  ‘That was not the business I was referring to, as you know. He was involved in procuring underage girls and a smaller number of boys for their use and abuse by young and middle-aged men, the vast majority of whom were Asian. It’s a vile but highly lucrative trade, and you are one of the men who have made it so. You were paying Fitton, and he was happy to accept your money. You were one of his better clients, with ready and seemingly bottomless funds and no doubt many customers eager to sample the goods you offered.’

  Hafeez frowned a little. The crinkling of his forehead was more than usually noticeable, for his olive-skinned face was abnormally smooth and unlined. He shook his head sadly and said, ‘I have no knowledge of such things. I suspect that you are merely seeking to distress me. Or, more charitably, that you have confused me with someone else. People tell me that white people often do that with Asians. I find that insulting, but I refuse to take offence, because I recognize that you have a difficult job to do, DCI Peach. No doubt your resources are also strained: everyone in the public services seems to complain about that nowadays. Often it seems to me merely an excuse for sloppiness and poor service.’

  ‘You spoke to Jason Fitton on Saturday night, not long before he died.’

  ‘How sinister you make things sound! I suppose that is one of the senior policeman’s skills. Yes, I spoke to him. We are members of what I believe to be the town’s premier sporting club and the summer ball is its biggest social occasion of the year. Of course we spoke to each other! We know each other well from our business dealings and we both relax by playing tennis at Birch Fields. It would have been unnatural if I had not spoken to Jason on Saturday night. And despite the foul and unwarranted accusations you have just made about girls of school age, I do not indulge in unnatural copulations, Detective Chief Inspector.’

  ‘What was the subject of your final conversation with Jason Fitton?’

  ‘I cannot remember. Perhaps your team, who seem to be questioning everyone who was present at the summer ball, will be able to enlighten us. It was something and nothing, something quite trivial – probably no more than a polite social exchange. Had it been more significant than that, I should have remembered it.’

  His tone was mocking, but his command of English was more complete and his delivery more precise than that of many native Brunton residents. He had moved into the area about ten years earlier, but Peach had no record of where he had been before that. Perhaps he had spent all or most of his life in Britain. ‘I can accept that you exchanged only meaningless pleasantries in public. But I was enquiring about your final conversation with our murder victim. The one you had in the car park when other people had departed, perhaps.’

  ‘The one we had immediately before his death, you mean?’ Younis produced his most taunting smile and passed it leisurely over first Peach and then Northcott. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no such conversation took place.’

  Northcott found himself wanting to hit the man’s smiling, eminently civilized face, much more than he ever wanted to hit the scum who flung the vilest obscenities and racial abuse into his face in the interview rooms at the station. He said tersely, ‘When did you last see Jason Fitton?’

  ‘At approximately twelve minutes to one on Saturday night, shortly before the band struck up the last waltz, which I believe is customary on these occasions.’

  Clyde made an elaborate business of recording this, as if he anticipated a triumphant rebuttal of it at some later stage in the investigation. He looked round at this strange business accommodation, which, apart from the desk and the leather chair behind it many feet away at the other end of the room, might have been a spacious sitting room in a penthouse flat. ‘How do you make your money, Mr Hafeez?’

  ‘Younis, please. We’re members of the same tennis club now, aren’t we? I hope we shall be able to play against each other in the near future, Clyde. Or even partner each other, perhaps. Yes, I think I should enjoy that. In the meantime, how I make my money is my own concern. Perhaps I inherited it: that is probably the best solution for you to adopt, if you are curious. I don’t propose to offer you any further information, and the English law is on my side. It is an admirable institution, much respected by us former colonials. I expect you feel the same, Clyde.’

  ‘We have information that you paid very large sums to Jason Fitton over the last year.’

  ‘Have you indeed? I should be glad to have the name of your source. Such information is highly confidential, even if it is correct – which in this case it isn’t.’

  Peach volunteered his first smile since the beginning of the meeting. ‘You know perfectly well that we don’t reveal our sources. We have access to Fitton’s bank accounts, information that would not normally be available to us. Even banks have to defer to murder, Mr Hafeez. Sooner or later, you will have to account for the three hundred and forty thousand pounds you have paid over the last year into one of those accounts. Nothing tangible seems to have changed hands. The natural assumption is that the money is for services rendered. There are underage girls being questioned in Oxford and in Birmingham at this moment. The Vice Squad is assembling evidence which will eventually put people behind bars for a very long time. It would be of great benefit to Brunton if you were one of those people.’

  Hafeez had hitherto been blandly inscrutable, but the mention of Oxford flashed real fear for an instant into those infuriating olive features. It passed almost before it had registered, but Peach noted it and was elated. ‘Other people in other places are assembling the evidence that will eventually put you away. Our concern this afternoon is something much more specific. We are concerned with the murder of Jason Fitton.’

  Hafeez shrugged his slim shoulders unhurriedly beneath the thin, smooth fabric of his expensive suit. ‘What possible reason could I have to harm a man who you have just claimed was a business
associate and a friend?’

  ‘Neither of us mentioned the word “friend”, Mr Hafeez. And we have an excellent motive for murder in your case. We hear that you are already attempting to take over his business empire.’

  Younis was unnerved by that. He hadn’t expected them to know about his visits to the casino and elsewhere, about his bid to take over the prostitution and money-lending rackets that had been the basis of Fitton’s empire. Not yet anyway. Their underworld grapevine must be almost as efficient as his. And he’d no idea yet where the leak might be: he didn’t know Fitton’s employees as he knew his own. He did his best to refute the suggestion by saying formally, ‘I assure you again that I have no connection with or interest in scrap metals or their recycling. Why on earth should I be interested in Fitton’s business?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be interested in anything as honest and straightforward as that. It’s his darker and more lucrative activities that would attract you, as all of us here know.’

  Hafeez was shaken, not just by the fact that Peach knew this but by his earlier remarks about Oxford and Birmingham. They’d arrested others already for the girls who’d gone there and he’d thought that his own actions had been well enough disguised for him to pass unnoticed. But if that investigation was still ongoing, they might yet come for him. The urbane condescension with which he had treated the earlier part of the interview had left him now. He said carefully, ‘How I make money and how I do business are my own concerns, not yours, as I told Clyde earlier. I did not kill Jason Fitton. I did not speak to him again after twelve forty-eight on Saturday night.’

  ‘I see. When did you leave Birch Fields, Mr Hafeez?’

  ‘Immediately after the dance concluded. I had no reason to stay around.’

  ‘And were you accompanied?’

  ‘No. I came to the ball on my own. I left on my own.’

  ‘A pity, that, from your point of view. But quite welcome for us, in your case. It keeps you in the frame, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I note your attempt at police harassment. I’m sure Chief Superintendent Tucker wouldn’t approve of it.’

  Peach beamed his approval of this mention of Tommy Bloody Tucker, who behind closed doors was a resolute racist, one of a vanishing breed of senior police officer. ‘Chief Superintendent Tucker surprises us all the time, Mr Hafeez. He would positively astound us if he gave you his support. In the meantime, if you cannot furnish us with an alibi for the time of this death, it might help your cause if you could suggest who else might possibly have killed Jason Fitton.’

  Younis took his time. They were surely going to leave him soon and he’d be able to set about finding out who’d leaked the news of his approach for Fitton’s empire. ‘Olive Crawshaw might have killed him, I should think. That bitch was no friend of Jason’s.’

  ‘Have you anything beyond that which makes you believe she is implicated?’

  He hadn’t really expected them to take him seriously when he’d mentioned the Crawshaw woman. Perhaps they had stuff on her that he didn’t know about. ‘She didn’t like Jason any more than she likes me. She’s a venomous bitch.’

  ‘Or perhaps she just has good taste in men. Anyone else you’d like to suggest?’

  There was a chance here to implicate or at least sully the name of a man who stood in the way of his ambitions at Birch Fields. ‘Arthur Swarbrick. He was around at the end. He acts as if he owns the place. He hated Jason Fitton.’

  ‘Hated? A strong word, Mr Hafeez. Tell us why you used it.’

  ‘I don’t know Swarbrick well, but I’ll stick by that word. I’ve heard one or two things he’s said, and I’ve seen the way he used to look at Jason.’

  Peach stood up. Northcott followed suit, then stepped forward a pace so that he loomed above and disconcertingly close to Hafeez, who recoiled a step and looked nervously towards Peach. The DCI smiled again, ‘No need to be afraid, Mr Hafeez. He’s a hard bastard, DS Northcott, but he’s quite tame, unless he has a real reason to attack. If that happens, I’m happy to release him and watch the carnage. Perhaps later in the week, eh?’

  Clyde was still seething when they reached the car. ‘He’s well capable of murder, that bugger!’ he snarled.

  ‘Indeed he is. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he did this one, does it? And Mr Hafeez gave us a couple of useful pointers, whether he meant to or not.’

  TWELVE

  Murder has its compensations, even for those tasked with finding the killer. The DCI had briefed his murder team each morning, but had otherwise hardly been in the station. It was a whole five days since he had been forced into direct contact with Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker.

  In an imperfect world, all good things inevitably come to an end. Thus it was that Peach’s first task after his briefing on Tuesday morning was to answer a summons to Tommy Bloody Tucker’s penthouse office on the top floor of the new police headquarters in Brunton. On a cloudy August morning, he plodded up the two flights of stairs with depression settling heavily around his shoulders.

  Tucker had his opening salvo carefully loaded. ‘We spoke of Jason Fitton on Thursday last. I told you he was a respected member of my Lodge and you said that you suspected him of serious criminal activity – a suspicion you admitted you were unable to support with hard evidence. He has now been murdered, Peach.’ On which impressive pronouncement, Tucker glared accusingly over his rimless spectacles at his hapless junior.

  ‘I’m well aware of that, sir,’ Percy replied. ‘I was detached from connubial bliss at an early hour on Sunday morning to contemplate his mortal remains in the car park at Birch Fields Tennis Club. At a time when more fortunate mortals were preparing for Sunday golf.’

  Tucker’s glare became a glower. He’d enjoyed his Sunday morning golf – very nearly broken a hundred, which was a rarity for this prince amongst hackers. ‘I’ve read the post-mortem report and the details from our forensic team.’

  Percy resisted the temptation to congratulate him upon his industry. ‘And what are your conclusions, sir, as you bring your vast experience to bear upon this latest violent outrage in our community?’

  Tucker seized upon the phrase: it was much easier than offering original thought. ‘A violent outrage is exactly what this is, you know, Peach. I’m glad to see that you at least acknowledge that things are getting more and more violent under your command.’

  ‘Technically your command, sir, as you often remind me when there is kudos to be enjoyed. As you also frequently assert, sir, we live in an increasingly violent society. I can surely not be held personally responsible for the violence exhibited in the nation as a whole.’

  ‘I don’t want excuses, Peach! I want results.’

  ‘Yes, sir. In view of this urgency, perhaps you would like to take charge of the investigation yourself. I’m sure that it would be salutary for the lads and lasses struggling at the crimeface to observe and measure your personal impact.’

  Tucker was aghast at this radical suggestion. ‘You know that it is my policy never to interfere directly with my staff during the execution of their duties.’

  ‘But there is no substitute for experience, sir, as you have frequently reminded me.’

  ‘And my experience will be devoted to ensuring that this investigation is pursued with proper diligence.’ He paused to savour the word and apparently found it worthy of repetition. ‘Diligence, Peach! I hope you hear me!’

  ‘I hear you indeed, sir.’ Percy picked up his chief’s banner and ran with it. ‘Murder most foul has been committed and its perpetrator must be brought to justice. Even if the victim was a villain of the first order and the town will be better off without him, his death must be diligently avenged. Otherwise anarchy that way lies!’

  ‘Villain of the first order? Jason Fitton was a member of my Lodge.’

  ‘But we know from previous experience that the two things are not mutually exclusive, sir.’ Peach noted the puzzlement on T.B. Tucker’s face and took heart from it. ‘There are plenty
of villains even in an exclusive tennis club, sir – probably even more than in your Lodge.’ He savoured this concession for a moment. ‘We have already interviewed some of the leading contenders, including one who proposes to take over Fitton’s evil empire. Did he garrotte Fitton in order to seize control of prostitution and loan-sharking and gambling in the town? That is what we are asking ourselves. Well, strictly speaking, DS Northcott and I are asking. We haven’t communicated our thoughts to the team as yet, because I was apprised of your wish to see me this morning.’

  Tucker wished the man wouldn’t use words like ‘apprised’. It wasn’t seemly in a DCI. You should be a chief constable before you indulged yourself with words such as that. He decided something more basic was necessary. ‘I don’t want you pissing about, Peach. I want you pursuing this case with all your bloody might.’

  ‘All my bloody might, sir.’ Percy weighed the phrase as if committing it to memory. ‘I think that is being applied, sir. Would you care to hear my frank appraisal of the present state of the investigation?’

  There he went again. ‘Appraisal’ – definitely not seemly for a DCI. ‘I hope you’ve not been pratting about, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve pratted for a single moment since I heard about this crime on Sunday morning, sir. I have to report that we are still adding to our list of suspects. We are not near to an arrest.’

  ‘That is emphatically not what I wanted to hear, Peach! We need results. We need to maintain our position at the head of clear-up rates in the north-west.’ Tucker jutted his jaw like John Wayne preparing to liberate Burma.

  ‘We saw the man who is manoeuvring to take over Fitton’s more dubious business interests yesterday afternoon, sir. He is to my mind a leading suspect in the case.’

  Tucker liked that phrase ‘more dubious’. It seemed to cover you either way. If the man proved not to be guilty, you could always back down and maintain that you’d always considered him one of the town’s benefactors. ‘You’d better tell me who is this mysterious person whose name you have so far withheld.’