An Unnecessary Murder Read online

  Was he kidding me? Of course I knew.

  Chapter Nine

  Sophia was driving us back to our flats.

  ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know how to thank you, or why you keep stepping in to help me. And I still can’t quite believe you are able to exert so much influence.’

  ‘I think what you need to do now is think about what’s going on here and who wants you out of the way. This can’t be a coincidence. In the space of a few weeks, you’ve been assaulted by a group of men with baseball bats, nearly framed for a robbery, and now framed for murder. I don’t know who you’ve upset, but we need to figure out who it is and stop them.’

  ‘I can’t ask you to get involved,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you to get caught up in this.’

  ‘I’m already caught up in this. And you don’t need to worry. I can look after myself. I’ve been in much worse situations than this in the past.’

  ‘But how do you know I’m innocent?’ I asked, as we pulled up at traffic lights.

  She turned to face me. ‘Many years ago, in my past, I fought in Kosovo. I worked and lived with killers. I was with you last night. Even the most cold-blooded of killers could not have behaved the way you did just after they had killed someone. You are no killer, Alfie. I would know if you were.’

  Sophia was referring to her time as a freedom fighter many years ago. It wasn’t something she usually spoke about, so I knew she was for real.

  There was a loud beep from behind – the traffic lights had changed.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ muttered Sophia, looking in her rear-view mirror. ‘Keep your hair on.’

  As she pulled away, she spoke to me again. ‘I’ve asked Pete to join us later. We need as many brains as we can to work on this.’

  I thought it was a great pity DB was still in a coma. His brain would definitely have been an asset in this situation. I suddenly realised I’d not been to see him today.

  ‘Could we go home via the hospital? Only I haven’t been to see-’

  ‘DB?’ she finished. ‘Of course we can.’

  I felt strangely self-conscious talking to DB in front of Sophia, but for some reason, I just had to tell him what had happened and to convince him that I really hadn’t sent those text messages. I held onto his hand as I told him, just like I always did. And then, when I had finished, I waited and waited, hoping for a sign. But all I got was the usual background hiss, click, hiss, click.

  Eventually, I felt Sophia gently squeeze my hand. It was time to go.

  ‘Do you come every day?’ she asked as we walked back to the car.

  ‘I do mornings and Pete does the afternoons. I sometimes come in the evenings, too, but there’s only so much you can say to a person in a coma.’ I smiled sadly. ’It’s funny, it was only when this happened we discovered we were the nearest thing he had to a family.’

  Sophia nodded quietly and slipped her hand through my arm. She knew what it was like to have no family. Until Jelena had arrived in her life, she had thought all her family were dead.

  ‘Would you like me to come with you sometimes?’ she asked quietly. ‘To visit? I like him. He has always been kind to me. I would like to be part of his family too.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s a great idea. He’d like that, I know he would.’

  She gave my arm a squeeze and we walked on in silence, momentarily lost in our thoughts. There was something nagging away in the back of my mind. I could almost make out what it was, but it was just out of reach. I just needed something, some sort of trigger, to bring it out into the open. And then, just as we were climbing into her car, without either of us realising it, Sophia provided that trigger.

  ‘Tell me what happened the day you found him,’ she said.

  ‘There’s not much to tell really. We were expecting him to meet us at the church for the funeral, but he didn’t show. That wasn’t like him so I started to worry. When he still hadn’t turned up by the end of the funeral, I knew something wasn’t right, so I went to his house. When I got there, he was stretched out on the floor unconscious. I called an ambulance. That’s it, end of story.’

  ‘He’s lucky to have someone who cared enough to worry,’ she said, ‘or he could have been there for days.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I smiled. ‘Betty was howling so loud someone would have noticed.’

  ‘Ah yes. Poor Betty. How is she?’

  ‘I’m told she’s settled in very nicely at Daphne’s,’ I said. ‘Ask Pete later, he’ll know. He seems to be spending a lot of time up there.’

  We drove on in silence for a few moments, and then suddenly, triggered by Sophia asking about DB, that little something that had been nagging away in the back of my mind blossomed into a fully-formed thought.

  ‘The doctors reckon Dry Biro had a heart attack. They say it could have happened any time and there wasn’t any particular reason,’ I began.

  Sophia glanced at me. ‘But you don’t think so?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning their diagnosis of a heart attack. It’s just that there are things that don’t quite sit right with me.’

  One of the things I loved about Sophia was that she was a great listener and she was highly skilled at drawing a story out of someone. She did that now.

  ‘Go on,’ she encouraged. ‘What things?’

  ‘Well, bear in mind that DB is one of the most organised and tidy people I’ve ever met, almost to the point of being compulsive. He’s also a creature of habit.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So?’

  ‘So he’s a tidy man, and yet there were papers strewn all across his table, and there was a chair in the middle of the floor.’

  Sophia considered this for a few seconds. ‘So, he had his heart attack as he reached across the table and as he fell back, he pushed the chair across the floor,’ she suggested.

  ‘But if he collapsed at the table, how come his body was all the way over on the other side of the kitchen? And it’s not a small kitchen – I’m talking a good distance.’

  Like a good sparring partner, she came straight back at me. ‘Perhaps he staggered across the room.’

  ‘Fair enough, but wouldn’t he have been likely to stagger across the room and land face down? Yet it was the back of his head that was split open.’

  ‘Maybe he managed to spin around as he fell,’ Sophia said.

  ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s also possible someone whacked him across the back of the head.’

  There was a brief lull in the conversation as Sophia thought about this.

  ‘But why do you think that?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure if this is a theory or if it’s just some wild idea from an overactive imagination, but this is what I’ve got. Point one: when I got to his house, the back door was locked. He only ever locks his back door if he’s going to bed, or if he’s going out. Point two: he was wearing his suit, ready to go to the funeral. There’s no way he would have been working at his kitchen table wearing his suit.’

  ‘But suppose he had locked the door because he was ready to go,’ she said.

  ‘He always goes in and out by the back door. He would have locked it from the outside as he left. He wouldn’t have locked himself in.’

  We had arrived at the little car park behind our flats now. Sophia parked the car and switched off the engine.

  ‘So what are you saying?’ she asked, turning to face me. ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘Knowing him as I do,’ I said, ‘and knowing how he behaves, this is what I think happened. He was probably working at something in the morning. When the time came, he would have tidied his papers and put the chair neatly back under the table. He detested wearing a suit so he would have left putting it on until the last moment.

  ‘He goes upstairs, changes into his suit and comes back downstairs ready to leave by the back door. The problem is, while he’s been upstairs, someone has come into the
kitchen through the back door. That someone hears him coming down the stairs, hides behind the kitchen door, and then as he walks across the kitchen they creep up behind him and bash him over the head. At the same time, the shock of being attacked brings on a heart attack.’

  ‘But what about Betty, wouldn’t she have barked when someone came in?’

  ‘Betty would have followed him upstairs when he went to change, and she would have settled in her bed in his bedroom if she thought he was going out. And anyway, she’s not exactly the world’s best guard dog, bless her.’

  ‘This would also explain something else,’ I continued, as we climbed from the car. ‘He always left the key in the kitchen door lock, on the inside. He would take it out and use it to lock the door when he left, then when he came back, he would use it to unlock the door.

  ‘Once inside, it would go back in the lock on the inside so he knew where it was. But there was no key on the inside when I found him. Whoever was in that house had locked the back door on their way out and either took the key with them or threw it away.’

  ‘Did you tell the police all this?’ asked Sophia as we walked to her door.

  ‘As far as anyone in authority is concerned, it was simply a little old man who had a heart attack. To be fair, there was no sign of forced entry and I couldn’t see that anything had been stolen, so why should they suspect something worse?’

  ‘But who would want to hurt him?’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s a good question. To be honest, he has made plenty of enemies, but most of those were years ago. Except for one particular detective inspector whose father has recently been charged with murder.’

  ‘You think Nash attacked Dry Biro?’

  ‘I doubt he would risk doing it himself, but I’m sure he would know the sort of people who could do a job like that for him.’

  We had reached her door now, and she fumbled in her handbag for a key. I was just about to thank her and say goodbye when she looked up.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘Err, well,’ I said awkwardly, ‘I was just going to go-’

  ‘Oh no,’ she warned. ‘You’re not going anywhere. I’m responsible for you, and right now I want you where I can keep an eye on you.’ She looked at her watch before continuing. ‘And anyway, Pete will be here soon. We have a lot of work to do if we’re going to sort this mess out.’

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘Go on,’ she ordered. ‘Inside. Now!’

  I didn’t feel I could argue, and to be honest, I didn’t really want to.

  Chapter Ten

  Sophia, Jelena, Pete, and I were trying to work out who might have killed Marie, but we weren’t really getting very far. She had turned making enemies into an art form, so, in reality, there could be any number of suspects. And there was no denying that if you looked at it objectively, I was a prime suspect. As Nash had pointed out, I did have a motive.

  Sophia thought we should narrow it down to people we knew, with a particular emphasis on people who might want to get even with me for some reason. After all, whoever had sent those text messages had intended for it to look as if I had sent them.

  So who did that leave?

  Positive Pete could certainly be said to have motive, but he had no reason to get even with me. And anyway, he had an alibi in Daphne. He had spent every afternoon and evening with her recently.

  Gloria, my ex-wife, was always a possibility, of course, but if we were to assume a certain amount of technical acumen would be needed, that definitely ruled her out. And anyway, even though they didn’t get on, would she really kill her own sister? Gloria was capable of a lot of things, but murder? I didn’t think so.

  And then, of course, there was always your friendly, local, neighbourhood thug, Nugent the Nutter. He certainly had the motive to get rid of Marie, who had been threatening to tell his wife about the affair she and Nugent had been having. But did he have reason to stitch me up? It didn’t seem likely.

  Last of all, Nasty Nash himself had good reason to want to lock me up and throw away the key, but again, I thought murder would be a bit extreme, even for him.

  We came to the conclusion that after nearly three hours of head-banging, we weren’t really getting anywhere. Sophia wasn’t prepared to dismiss either Nugent or Nash as her main suspects, so we decided it was time for Pete and me to pay Nugent a visit. We were pretty sure we would know if he was lying or not.

  There was just one little problem. Jelena had noticed a strange car parked outside. It wasn’t one that any of us recognised and there seemed to be someone sat inside. Just to check it out, Sophia went out to her car. When she came back, she confirmed there was indeed a surly-looking man sat in the car watching her every move.

  So, Nash had planted a spy. In that case, we would just have to come up with an escape plan…

  Chapter Eleven

  PC Biddeford couldn’t quite believe his luck. He had been personally selected by DI Nash for a special job. Nash had identified him, Stephen Biddeford, as having special talents. His keen eye and observation skills had finally been noted. And best of all, he’d been asked to go undercover to keep an eye on a dangerous murder suspect. He was so proud he could burst.

  Meanwhile, in the car park outside Alfie’s flat, a wretchedly-tired Detective Constable Richie Weir was struggling to stay awake. Having spent all night in his car, he was cold, tired, and fed up. He grumbled quietly to himself as he waited for his relief. This was a ridiculous job. Why were they watching someone like Alfie Bowman? He’s not exactly a serial killer is he? He certainly didn’t look like a desperate criminal on the run.

  This is all because of bloody Detective Inspector Nasty bloody Nash with another bloody bee in his bloody bonnet. The man was a complete arsehole.

  PC Biddeford swung into the car park and parked alongside Weir’s car, giving him a cheery beep to let him know relief had arrived. He jumped from his car, opened the passenger door on Weir’s car, and jumped in, looking immensely pleased with himself. Then the awful smell of sweaty body, stale cigarettes and last night’s takeaway began to take effect.

  ‘Why don’t you go knock on his fuckin’ door and tell him you’ve arrived?’ asked Weir, glaring at the new arrival. ‘Did no one tell you this is a discreet operation?’

  ‘Ah. Err, yes. Sorry,’ stuttered Biddeford.

  ‘You don’t arrive on surveillance tooting your bloody horn, you idiot.’

  He looked Biddeford up and down. To an old hand like Weir, soured by years of boring, repetitive, surveillance jobs, a fresh-faced young man like Biddeford looked incapable of handling any sort of responsibility.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

  ‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ said Biddeford, wearily. ‘Of course, I’ve never heard that one before. What’s up with all you grumpy old people? I’m twenty-five, okay?’

  ‘Is this your first time in plain clothes?’

  ‘Yes.’ Biddeford smiled proudly, despite the smell filling the car, which was beginning to make him feel sick. He was particularly pleased with his clothes. He’d spent over an hour going through his wardrobe to make sure he would blend in.

  ‘I wonder where they get you people from,’ said Weir, holding his head in despair. ‘And why did they have to send you out here to me? You’re supposed to blend in, to be one of the crowd. You couldn’t look more like a policeman if you were wearing your bloody uniform.’

  Biddeford sat quietly staring through the windscreen. Well, bollocks to you, DC Misery. I’ll show you why they sent me out here. I’ll do such a great job you’ll see exactly why.

  Satisfied that he had ruined the young officer’s day, DC Weir pointed out what Biddeford needed to know. It wasn’t much. Alfie’s door and Sophia’s door. That’s all there was to it really.

  Weir yawned expansively. ‘Now bugger off to your own car and let me go home,’ he said. ’And one more thing. Don’t get distracted by the fanny.’

  Biddeford looked at him vacan
tly.

  ‘The fanny,’ explained Weir. ’Sophia Ingliss and her niece. Real bloody tasty, both of ‘em. Just remember not to get distracted by them. You’re here to watch a wanker, not to become one. If Bowman moves from that flat, you let us know, and you follow him. Okay? That’s all you have to do. No heroics, right?’

  Gulping in as much fresh air as he could, Biddeford was only too pleased to go back to his own car. He seriously hoped he wasn’t going to have to work with Weir too often. Miserable git. The smell would have been bad enough, but he was coarse and uncouth, and the language! Was it really necessary to swear so much?

  He watched Weir drive away and turned back to his task, carefully opening his notebook and making sure his pencil was at the ready. He was going to write down everything. He’d show them. He looked at his watch, licked the end of his pencil and noted his first observation.

  8.15 am. Nothing to report.

  Jelena watched from the kitchen window, chewing on a piece of toast.

  ‘They change guard,’ she called to Sophia. ‘Grumpy old man gone. Now have little boy. This too easy.’

  Sophia joined her to spy on the unwitting PC Biddeford. ‘It’s a sign you’re getting older,’ she said, wistfully, ‘when policemen start to look like little boys.’

  ‘Is good,’ said Jelena, happily. ‘Putty in hand.’

  Down in the car park, unaware that he, the soon to be ‘putty in hand’ spy, was being spied upon, Biddeford was beginning to get carried away. His perceived importance no longer bore any resemblance to reality. In his mind, he was fast becoming a sort of James Bond figure. As far as he was concerned, this was it, his chance to shine.

  I’ll show Inspector Nash just how good I am. He’ll know he made the right choice.

  In his mind, he could see himself grappling with the villain, and then later being slapped on the back and congratulated by Nash, maybe even a commendation from the chief constable for being an outstanding undercover officer. Well, okay, maybe he wasn’t exactly undercover. But he was in plain clothes. That was nearly the same, wasn’t it?