Chapter 11
Sergeant Wield was no intellectual. The only books he owned were the complete works of H. Rider Haggard which he read and re-read avidly. But he knew a prick-teaser when he saw one.
Janey Pickersgill crossed and recrossed her long legs with maximum slither and maximum exposure. Her skirt had the fashionable side slit and Wield observed that stockings had made a comeback after a decade of tights. She noticed him noticing and stretched sensuously in her armchair, arching her back to obtrude her tiny bust.
Wield yawned, it wasn't altogether an affectation. There had been a lot of talk, not much sleep, the previous night. Maurice, his friend in Newcastle, had been ill at ease, not wholly welcoming. Their talk had not got to the heart of things but Wield suspected the worst.
As he did now.
'Janey, if you're trying to take my mind off my job, forget it,' he said pleasantly. 'I've seen better tits on a Turkish wrestler. Tell me again about that Thursday night.'
'You can't talk to me like that. I'll tell Frankie,’ she threatened. But she arranged her skirt into more decorous folds and lit a cigarette, holding it and puffing it like a beginner. There was something of the tyro about everything she did. Still in her mid-twenties, she had not yet developed the patina of hardness, or worse, of dreary resignation which is worn by those whose contact with authority is invariably defensive or on visiting days. But it would come, thought Wield. Meanwhile, though there was no chance of his being seduced by her charms, he must be careful not to be charmed by her naivete.
She had married Frankie Pickersgill knowing what he was and had lied constantly and vehemently while he was being investigated for the off-licence job.
'Didn't they tell you at the depot Frankie's driving a load across to Manchester? He won't be back till late this afternoon.'
'Yes, I know,' said Wield, settling comfortably in his chair. 'What I don't know is what you're trying to take my mind off with all this leg-waving, Janey. I mean, all I'm interested in is Tommy Maggs. Now the three of you were here the night it happened. Right?'
'The night what happened?' she said warily.
'Why, the night young Tommy Maggs's girlfriend got killed,' said Wield innocently. 'Did anything else happen that night?'
'Yes, all right, we were all here, watching the telly. We've told your lot already. What are you bothering us again for?'
'You see, Janey, Tommy's disappeared,' said Wield earnestly. 'We're worried about him. He's naturally very upset. A young lad like that, wandering around in a distressed state, anything could happen. You can see that, can't you?'
'I can't see what it's got to do with me,' complained the woman, nervously pecking at her cigarette.
'No? Well, it's Ron, really. You know what these youngsters are like. False sense of loyalty, not really knowing their friends' best interests, that sort of thing. There's a chance he may know more than he's letting on. I wondered if you could help.'
'No. I don't know anything. He's said nothing to me.'
'Are you sure? Throw your mind right back. Back to that night when the three of you were sitting here watching telly together.'
'Well, he wouldn't be likely to say much then, would he, as nothing had happened yet,' said Janey with the pride of one stumbling on an oasis of logic in a wasteland of feminine intuition.
'Of course, he wouldn't. You're right,' said Wield. 'Unless he said something about Tommy's state of mind when he left him in the Bay Tree.'
The woman looked at him in alarm.
'You don't think Tommy's got anything to do with killing that lass, do you? It was the Choker, everyone knows that.'
'But who's the Choker, Janey? Who knows that? You've met Tommy?'
'Couple of times. Ron brought him round to the house.'
'Nice lad.'
'He seemed very nice. Very decent,' she said emphatically. A scrap of tobacco had got stuck to her tongue. She picked at it with a scarlet fingernail. The effect was much sexier now that she wasn't trying.
'And Brenda, did you meet her?'
'Just the once. She was in the car when Tommy called, so I made him bring her in. Nice girl too. Well spoken.'
'Bit posh for Tommy, you thought?'
'No. Just well spoken.'
'Frankie, did he meet her?'
'Yes. He said hello.'
'And what did he think of her?'
Now alarms were ringing in her mind.
'What's that mean? He didn't think anything of her. Just for a minute they spoke. What the hell are you driving at?'
Wield looked at her with a blankness not altogether affected. He had stumbled on this line of questioning by chance just as he was about ready to give up and go. There was no way that Frankie was going to let hints about his brief acquaintance with Brenda Sorby scare him into admitting the Spinks ‘warehouse job. But Janey might let something slip out of sheer indignation.
'We're interested in anyone who knew Brenda,' he said, suddenly very stiff, very official. 'There's a strong possibility that she was picked up by a car after she left Tommy that night. And for her to get willingly into a car at that time of night, she would almost certainly need to know the driver.'
She was on her feet leaning over him, so close and so angry that he felt little specks of spittle hit his face as she spoke.
'Are you pigs so hard up you want to pin this one on any poor sod who's handy? Well, you've come to the wrong shop if it's my Frankie you're after. He was here with me all that night, and I mean all that night, from when he got home till next morning when he went to work. And nothing's going to make me say different, not even if they send a whole battalion looking like you do!'
'What time did you go to bed?' asked Wield calmly.
'What?'
'Bed. You did go to bed? What time.'
'I don't know. Half eleven, midnight.'
She was confused as people often are by a lack of reaction to an emotional outburst.
'What about Ron?'
'What about Ron?'
'Did he go first? Or was he still up when you and Frankie went to bed?'
'I don't know. First I think.'
'So there was a period when you and Frankie were downstairs by yourselves between eleven and midnight.'
'I don't know! What's it matter? Mebbe we went first.'
'Leaving Ron by himself?'
'No! I mean, most likely we all went up together.'
'I didn't know you were that close a family,' said Wield.
She slapped at his face, a full round-arm blow. Wield parried unhurriedly, the chopping edge of his left hand held palm forward at head height like a gesture of peace.
'Jesus!' she swore as she nursed her wrist.
'Pick someone your own size,' said Wield.
