Dead on Arrival Page 19

  ‘But there had, of course, been a precipitating factor, though I didn’t realise it at the time – the murder of Mrs Jackson and the subsequent publicity over the very unusual jacket her companion had been wearing the night she was killed – the very distinctive, expensive jacket which Geoff had given you for your birthday.

  ‘And so we come to Tuesday night, the night of Geoff’s murder. By this time you were in a very precarious state of mind. You’d heard about Mrs Jackson’s death, and you were naturally frightened that the police would catch up with you. You knew that Frank was likely to be on your tail the minute he found out about the fast one you’d pulled on him over the fake television deal. Chris had thrown you out on Sunday night and told you not to come back. And, worst of all, you’d just been finally rejected by Sharon, despite the gold bracelet you’d risked so much to give her.

  ‘So, when Geoff arrived with the news of the television appeal over the jacket, you must have been feeling pretty desperate, and this was the last straw, especially when he insisted that you give yourself up. You argued, you lost your temper, you grabbed the ashtray which, ironically, Geoff himself had given you, and …’ Thanet mimed the blow to the back of Geoff’s head.

  ‘Now you had to decide what to do. And this was the point at which the solution came to you. Why not change places with Geoff, leave all your problems behind you and grab the opportunity of starting a new life, in infinitely better circumstances? But first, you had to make sure that Geoff would not be suspected of killing Steve. You therefore had to appear as Steve to someone who knew him well, and at the same time provide Geoff with an alibi. You knew he had a date, he’d told you so, and you also knew he’d been out with the girl only once, for a couple of hours. Presumably he’d also told you where she lived. You were pretty confident you could pull it off, so you began by adding a touch of authenticity to the body by changing shoes with Geoff. You couldn’t risk anyone who knew you noticing that those scruffy plimsolls you always wore had disappeared. Incidentally, it was lucky for you that Chris didn’t notice you weren’t wearing them when you called on him. Then you stuffed the coat Geoff had been wearing into a large plastic bag, together with the ashtray and the incriminating jacket, and wearing your usual blue anorak you drove in Geoff’s car to Chris’s house. You had to leave the Scimitar out of sight, of course, which is why the neighbours reported you as leaving on foot. You left Chris at a quarter past seven and you then changed into Geoff’s coat, and on the way to Caroline’s house buried your own anorak, the leather jacket and possibly the ashtray in a rubbish skip. You knew that the police would work out that there simply wouldn’t have been time for you to get home and for Geoff to kill you and get back to Caroline’s house by half past seven. Geoff would therefore be in the clear and you’d be home and dry. All in all, it was a most ingenious plan, and it almost worked.’

  Thanet paused and almost at once Long began a slow hand-clap. ‘Bravo, Inspector. Bravo. You’ve missed your vocation. You ought to write detective stories.’

  ‘You like my reconstruction, Mr Long?’

  ‘Fascinating. There’s only one thing wrong with it, of course. It’s not true. Oh, I’ll grant you that it has elements of truth, which is what makes it sound so plausible, but in essence it’s a story, ingenious but with no foundation in reality. I am Geoffrey Hunt and nothing you can say or do will change that fact.’

  ‘Won’t it?’ said Thanet softly.

  ‘No. There’s no way you can prove otherwise.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s something you’ve forgotten, Mr Long.’

  ‘Oh?’ There was an edge of uneasiness in the monosyllable.

  ‘Do you remember, when you were a child, you had to go into hospital?’

  Long frowned. ‘How can I, Inspector?’ he said irritably. ‘I haven’t been into hospital in my entire life.’

  ‘It was after an unfortunate incident with your step-father, in the garden. You were four years old at the time. You suffered concussion and a broken leg, and you were in hospital for some time.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’m saying that I’ve checked, and the hospital still have the X-rays they took at the time. The nature of that fracture was such that it would most certainly show up in an autopsy, many years later. The post-mortem on your brother’s body showed no such fracture. The leg bones were intact, had never been broken …’

  Something was happening to Long’s face. The light of combat in the eyes was fading, the hard, fierce lines of cheek and jaw slackening as the inescapable truth of what Thanet was saying sank in.

  ‘I presume that you would be willing to undergo some X-rays, Mr Long?’

  Steve buried his face in his hands.

  Silence.

  Thanet and Lineham exchanged triumphant glances.

  Then Long stirred, sagged back in his chair and gave a long, defeated sigh. ‘OK, you win. I’d better make a statement.’

  Astonishing, thought Thanet. Already Long’s accent had reverted to the slurred glottal stop, the Kentish vowel sounds.

  ‘In that case, I think we’ll transfer ourselves to the police station.’

  Long heaved himself wearily to his feet. ‘OK.’ His face hardened. ‘But you might as well get one thing clear from the start, Inspector. This isn’t going to be a confession. I may have changed places with Geoff, but I didn’t kill him.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Chief Inspector Hines, please.’

  ‘One moment, sir.’

  Thanet gripped the receiver tightly. Let him be out.

  Etiquette demanded he make this call, but Thanet wanted to take Steven Long’s statement himself.

  ‘Sorry, he’s slipped out for a bite to eat, sir. Can I take a message?’

  Relief. ‘Just tell him I rang, and I’ll try again later.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Thanet returned to the interview room. Long was insisting on making a statement about Marge Jackson’s death before talking about the switch with Geoff. He wanted, he said, to get it over with. Thanet and Lineham had already arranged that, providing DCI Hines was not available, Lineham would begin the questioning.

  After Geoff’s birthday visit on Sunday evening, Steve had roamed restlessly around the flat for a while, drinking some cans of beer he had picked up on the way back from Chris’s house. He was feeling very depressed, all the more so because earlier on his hopes had been high. Encouraged by the birthday card Sharon had sent him and knowing that Howells often played rugby on Sunday afternoons, he had counted on finding Sharon alone, and had taken along not only the birthday cake but the gold bracelet in the hope of softening her attitude towards him. Instead, he had been forced to leave, disappointed and humiliated.

  After attempting to console himself with a succession of double whiskies he had gone to Chris and his wife for comfort, but once again things had gone wrong and he had succeeded only in antagonising them and being told not to come back.

  By this time he had been desperate for company and although in the normal way of things he wouldn’t have been particularly pleased to see Geoff, he had appreciated the fact that his twin had remembered his birthday (‘Not that he could very well have forgotten it, it was his, too’) and had been disappointed at Geoff’s refusal to go out for a drink with him, because of the date with Caroline.

  So when Geoff left he had felt abandoned by the world. There was no one he wanted to see, except Sharon, and no one, apparently, who wanted to see him. And it was his birthday. So in the end, he had decided to go and see if he could pick up a girl.

  He had tried several pubs without luck before ending up in Coddington, where he had struck lucky (‘if you could call it that, she was forty, if she was a day’) with Marge Jackson. By this time he was past caring what the woman was like. All he wanted was some warmth, some closeness, however artificial, to another human being. So when Marge suggested leaving he had agreed readily enough.

  They had driven to a quiet place she knew, a
layby off the minor road which runs through Coddington Woods. And it was there that horror struck.

  It had been obvious for some minutes that Steve was approaching the part of the tale he dreaded telling. His speech had become more hesitant, his face the colour of tallow.

  Until now Lineham had had to do little more than make encouraging noises.

  ‘We were kissing, see, and, you know, getting down to it, when …’ Steve broke off, shook his head in disgust, his face contorted.

  ‘When what?’ said Lineham.

  Thanet wondered what on earth was coming. Surely Steve wasn’t so innocent that any sexual ploy used by a prostitute would produce this degree of revulsion?

  A complex succession of emotions chased each other across Steve’s face – puzzlement, confusion, bewilderment. ‘I still don’t know why it got to me like that. I …’ Steve gulped, tried again. ‘One of my cuff buttons had caught in her hair and suddenly … suddenly it all came off, and she was … she was bald.’

  So Marge Jackson had been wearing a wig, thought Thanet. Comprehension flooded in. Lena May, Steve’s mother, also habitually wore wigs. What if she, too, suffered from partial or total hair loss? If so, there had perhaps been some traumatic incident in the past when Steve, as a child, had witnessed his mother’s ‘hair’ come off, an incident which, though long forgotten, could have triggered off Steve’s exaggerated response in the car that night.

  Thanet glanced at Lineham, but the sergeant was showing no reaction. He had no doubt known about Mrs Jackson’s baldness all along, but had no reason to mention it to Thanet.

  ‘I’m still not really sure what happened next,’ said Long. ‘One minute there we were, getting down to it, like I said, and the next … It was just like if a bomb had exploded near-by.’

  ‘Try to take it step by step,’ said Lineham. ‘Her wig came off, then …?’

  ‘I jerked away from her and she must have realised why. I suppose her vanity was hurt or something because suddenly she just threw herself at me, screeching and swearing and hammering away at my chest with clenched fists.’ Steve shook his head. ‘Ever since I heard the news on the radio I’ve tried and tried to remember exactly what happened next, but it’s just a blur. That noise she was making … It went through my head like an electric drill and I just wanted to shut her up, to stop her. I think I managed to get hold of both her wrists with one hand, while I tried to put the other over her mouth, but I couldn’t because she kept twisting her head from side to side. So I transferred my grip to her throat, just for a few seconds, to cut off the air. But I knew I couldn’t keep it up, it would be dangerous, so, very quick, before she knew what was happening, I reached across, threw open her door and shoved her out. Then I chucked her … her wig after her and drove off, fast. I didn’t wait to see if she was all right, I just wanted shot of her. I suppose I should have checked she was OK, but all I could think of was getting away. I didn’t mean to kill her, I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘Nevertheless, she fractured her skull and lay there all night, unconscious. She was still alive, just, when they found her next morning but she was dead on arrival at the hospital.’

  ‘Oh God … If … Do you think, if I’d waited, taken her to hospital straightaway …?’

  Lineham consulted Thanet with a glance.

  Thanet shook his head. ‘We don’t know. All we know is that she is dead, and from what you say it would seem likely that you were responsible.’

  ‘But I told you, I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘Intentions have very little to do with it at this stage, I’m afraid. Anyway, as I’ve already explained to you, we don’t know a great deal about the case. Detective Chief Inspector Hines is in charge of it and I’ve no doubt he’ll be along to see you as soon as I can get in touch with him. Meanwhile, my prime concern is the death of your brother. So if you don’t mind I’d like to move on, now, to Tuesday evening.’

  It seemed that Thanet’s theory as to what happened on the night of Geoff’s murder was substantially correct – with the crucial difference that, according to Steve, he was innocent of Geoff’s murder.

  Geoff had arrived at Steve’s flat between a quarter and twenty past six. Coast to Coast was on TVS.

  ‘Did you see the beginning of the programme?’

  ‘No, I’ve only just got in. Why?’

  ‘What the hell have you been up to, Steve? That woman who was murdered in Coddington on Sunday …’

  ‘What about her? What’re you talking about?’

  ‘Oh come off it, Steve, there’s no point in trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Look, a man was seen with her, and there was a description of the jacket he was wearing – a grey leather jacket with a red dragon on the back … How many grey leather jackets with red dragons on the back d’you think there are around here?’

  ‘Oh God …’

  ‘There was a sketch, too. Every five-year-old in the area would recognise that jacket if he saw it now. Where is it?’

  ‘Oh, God. Look, Geoff, she wasn’t dead when I left her, I swear …’

  ‘Never mind that for the moment. I said, where’s the jacket now?’

  ‘On the back seat of the car.’

  ‘If anyone should see it … Go and get it. This second. Then we’ll decide what to do.’

  Leaving the door to the flat ajar Steve had hurried off downstairs and along the passage to the back door. The car was parked at the back of the house and this was the quickest way to get to it. There was an outside light, but the bulb must have gone because it didn’t come on when Steve depressed the switch and it took him a moment or two to adjust to the darkness.

  He picked his way cautiously across to his car, and then, in his haste to open the door, dropped his keys. It had been raining earlier and there was a puddle alongside the driving door, so he had to grope about gingerly in the water and then dry the keys before finding the right one by touch and inserting it in the lock. Then he had grabbed the jacket, bundled it up under his arm and hurried back upstairs. He had seen no one, either on the way down or on the way back, though he thought that as he came in through the back door he had heard the front door close. He had been away perhaps five minutes, in all.

  By now Thanet had guessed what was coming.

  ‘As I came up the stairs I noticed my door was open wider than I’d left it. I thought the draught coming up the stairs must have done it. Until I went inside …

  ‘I couldn’t see Geoff at first and I thought he must’ve gone into the kitchen. I walked a few paces into the room and then I noticed the ashtray on the floor …’

  ‘Where was it, exactly?’

  ‘Half-way between the back of the settee and the door, and a bit to the right.’

  Thanet nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It usually stood on the sideboard. It was a present from Geoff, he’d brought it back from Italy … I couldn’t think how it’d got on the floor, but naturally I picked it up – well, you would, wouldn’t you? And then I saw there was blood on it, and on the carpet, too, underneath. It didn’t register at first, what it was, but the second it clicked, I went further into the room, looking around, and … and there was Geoff, lying face down on the rug in front of the settee. Well, you didn’t have to be a genius to see what had happened … I went and felt for a pulse, but there wasn’t one and when I half-rolled him over and saw his eyes open like that, staring … Well, it was obvious he was dead.

  ‘I just sort of collapsed into a chair and stared at him. I couldn’t believe it. I’d only been away a few minutes and … Then it dawned on me. Whoever had killed Geoff must have thought it was me. After all, here he was, alone in my flat, looking just like me … It wouldn’t have occurred to the man who killed him that it could be anyone but me. So someone out there wanted me dead, and when they found out it was Geoff who had been killed, they’d probably have another go.

  ‘That was when I had this brilliant idea. Geoff was dead now, nothing would bring him back. Why not change places? Like you said,
it seemed a stroke of genius. I was really browned off with my life, everything seemed to have been going wrong lately, and if I stepped into Geoff’s shoes, I’d be able to make a fresh start. In fact, I’d be sitting pretty. Geoff’s mum was dead, and I knew Geoff was moving to Staffs next week, for his new job with Scimitar. I was pretty confident I could step into his shoes, for a while, anyway. If it turned out the job was beyond me, too bad. They could fire me if they wanted to, and no one’d still be any the wiser I wasn’t really Geoff. And in the meantime I thought if I lay low for a few days, kept away from his old friends on the excuse I was too busy packing and so on, no one need ever know. I’d get out of the mess I was in, over that woman on Sunday night, and also, which seemed just as important, I’d fool the character who’d done Geoff in into thinking I was dead … I must’ve sat there for a good ten minutes, working it all out, trying to think of all the snags. And in the end I thought, I’ll give it a go. What have I got to lose?’

  A flicker of pain crossed Steve’s face at this point and Thanet knew he was thinking about Sharon.

  ‘And I’d have everything to gain. By now I knew exactly what I was going to do, and I got on with it. I swapped my own stuff for Geoff’s, keys, wallet and so on, and changed shoes with him. We’ve always taken the same size, and like you said, I was afraid someone might notice if he wasn’t wearing my plimsolls. I never wore anything else. Then I … Well, you’ve already worked it all out, haven’t you? It was just like you said, back at the house. I did wonder whether to leave that bloody jacket in the flat, and let them work out that Steve was the man they wanted in connection with Marge Jackson’s death, but somehow I couldn’t. Although I wasn’t going to be Steve any more, I didn’t want Steve blamed for a murder he hadn’t done. So I decided to dump it. The ashtray was another problem. I didn’t dare leave it there, because I’d got some of the blood on my fingers, and I was afraid the police would be able to tell I’d handled it after I’d apparently been killed. So I decided to dump that, too. Apart from that … well, like I said, you had it all worked out.’