The Second Jeopardy Read online

  The Second Jeopardy

  Roger Ormerod

  © Roger Ormerod 1987

  Roger Ormerod has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1987 by Constable.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter One

  Detective Sergeant Tranter leaned back on the park bench and tried not to laugh. ‘You, Harry?’ he asked. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’ Then he did.

  Harry Hodnutt was bending forward, staring at the path and tearing a blade of grass to pieces. ‘All right.’

  ‘What’s he going to use? An anti-tank gun?’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘Damn it, you’re even bigger than when I saw you last.’

  There was silence. They both knew their last meeting had been four years before. To be precise, four years three months and five days. It was on that day that Sergeant Tranter had said to Harry: ‘I am charging you with robbery, and with the murder of Angela Reed.’

  The sergeant pursed his lips and stared at the scuffed toes of his joggers. ‘So what is it, Harry? Don’t tell me you’re asking for police protection.’ He glanced sideways, then quickly back again.

  ‘Not that.’

  ‘And why me?’

  Harry turned his head. He had a face that had looked too often and too close to flying fists, and knuckles to match. There was no expression on his face. Expressions had difficulty getting out.

  ‘You’re my friend.’

  ‘Me? I arrested you.’

  ‘All the same.’ Harry nodded ponderously. ‘Just wanted a bit of advice.’

  Nothing changed in Tranter’s relaxed posture, but inside he’d stiffened from big, flat feet to the ruffled nape of his corrugated neck. A lot of his work relied on instinct, and he’d have said that Harry Hodnutt, for all his bulk and lumbering strength, was incapable of cold-blooded violence. Get him annoyed, and maybe it’d be a different story. Tranter, who was too close to retirement, had no intention of checking it out. But Harry was cold-blooded at that moment, almost monosyllabic with it, and he had been calmly discussing violence. But against himself. That was what the sergeant had found laughable. Yet…and this was not amusing at all…it could so easily become inverted.

  ‘Now let’s get this straight,’ he said, licking his lips and sucking at his moustache, not looking at Harry. ‘You tell me this character as good as said he’s going to kill you.’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘You told me…’

  ‘He skated round it.’

  ‘But you got that impression?’

  ‘Thassit.’

  ‘And so…’ Tranter knew he had to handle this tenderly. Harry was quite capable of thumping Tranter into the ground — might even enjoy it. And Harry wasn’t noted for a vast intellect.

  ‘And so,’ said Tranter, clenching his fists, ‘you’re telling me this because one day you’re going to come along to the station and ask for me. And tell me you’ve hit somebody a bit too hard, and what you want to know from me, right now, is the law on the subject.’

  ‘You crazy or somethin’?’ Harry moved his massive shoulders and made it a simple question.

  ‘Whether you could plead self-defence.’

  ‘Why’d I want to do that?’ Harry got to his feet and stretched. Normally he stood six feet three inches, but stretching he seemed to reach to the trees, his chest expanded, his head sank between his shoulders, and he yawned. ‘If you ain’t gonna talk sense,’ he said, ‘I might’s well gerroff. I thought you’d help. Seems I was wrong.’

  ‘Now wait a minute, Harry.’ Tranter was half on his feet. Harry reached forward and put a hand on his chest and eased him back again. The spread fingers completely covered the motif: Love And Peace, on the sergeant’s track suit.

  ‘You’re tired, Sarge. Sorry I troubled you.’

  ‘Harry, I apologize. I got it wrong. Sit down again. Who is this idiot who’s had the nerve to threaten you?’

  Harry stared down at him. The fact that he hadn’t simply turned and walked away indicated concern. Tranter knew that. Concern, not worry. It would take a lot to worry Harry. But Harry was frowning, which meant he was thinking, and that could be a serious matter.

  ‘You’ll listen?’

  ‘All ears.’ Tranter nodded. He was interested, anyway, as the whole thing sounded way off beam.

  ‘All right, then.’

  Harry sat. Tranter offered a cigarette, but Harry shook his head. Tranter watched a thrush worrying a worm from beneath a rhododendron, and waited.

  ‘Tells me his name’s Fletcher,’ said Harry at last. ‘Vic Fletcher. Sat opposite me one evenin’ in the Cross Keys, me just sitting there with a pint and nothing to do. I’d been out a fortnight by that time. Nothin’ coming along…you know.’

  ‘None of your old mates with a job for you?’

  ‘Somethin’ like that.’

  `Don’t let ’em con you, Harry. Nicking cars, waving plastic guns…’

  ‘For Chrissake!’

  Tranter glanced at him. The voice had been bitter, angry, when Tranter had only been ribbing him. ‘Advice, Harry,’ he said gently.

  ‘I’m stayin’ clean. Do I tell this or not?’

  ‘Tell it then, tell it.’ Tranter might have been soothing a child.

  The look Harry threw at him was as angry as his tone. Too many people assumed he was dim, and he was fed up with it. He shook his head, and gave it a few seconds.

  ‘This Vic Fletcher,’ he went on at last, ‘he just started talking. Like a blasted professor or somethin’, all about life and its meaning and people’s responsibilities to society…’

  ‘Big words, Harry.’

  ‘What he said.’

  ‘Philosophy, it’s called.’

  ‘I bet it is. Anyway, on he went, and all I did was get bored. Then he started chuntering on about justice and how it’s falling down on the act, and how it was his duty — oh, some crap like that, you know — duty to step in when justice flops on its face.’

  ‘Sounds just like my Chief Super.’

  ‘If you can’t be serious…’

  ‘Honest. He says things like that. We spend months getting in the evidence, and the jury brings in a not guilty…’ He stopped, slapping his knee. ‘There I go. Sorry, Harry, nothing personal. He wasn’t talking about you.’

  ‘Maybe not your boss, but this Vic Fletcher was.’

  Tranter stared into the distance. A woman was walking her dog. He couldn’t have said what pedigree the dog possessed, but the woman was packed with it.

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘He mentioned the murder of Angela Reed.’

  ‘Did he now? Did he indeed?’ Tranter lit a cigarette. All of a sudden it had ceased to be amusing. ‘So he knew you?’

  ‘Must’ve done,’ said Harry moodily.

  ‘And you realized that?’

  ‘I’m not a complete fool, Sarge.’

  ‘No.’

  Harry, the sergeant knew, was no worse than a naïve and trusting fool, with the
social conscience of a Labrador puppy. He had always allowed himself to go along with any wild scheme that promised action, and if the law stepped in to slap his knuckles, then that was part of the game. It evened things up for Harry, so that he could emerge from prison all purified and free to start again. Tranter hoped that anything Harry had in mind for starters after his recent prison term would occur on somebody else’s patch. It had always been a messy business, arresting Harry Hodnutt.

  ‘I knew he was up to something,’ Harry claimed. ‘But I played it cool. Waited. To see what happened.’

  ‘Didn’t actually screw his neck till he told you what his game was?’

  ‘Didn’t need to. He told me in the end.’

  ‘And what was it? Is it, rather.’

  ‘He kept cropping up, like he was following me. Kept spouting the same old rubbish about conscience and retri-whatsit.’

  ‘Bution.’

  ‘Yeah, that. Then he came out with it, and why he was haunting me. Sort of apologizing, you know. Said: Harry — we were on Christian names by then, Harry and Vic — says Harry, you do see what I’m getting at? All prissy. And when I said no, he said if the law wasn’t goin’ to hand out the penalty, then he’d have to do it, and he was sorry and all that, but it wasn’t his fault the death penalty’s been abolished, and he never believed in abolishin’ it, and he hoped I’d see it his way.’ He stopped, panting. He’d memorized it, and the effort had been exhausting.

  ‘Wants putting away.’

  ‘No Sarge, he’s got a point.’ Harry frowned. There was room on his low forehead for only one frown line, but it was a deep one, and impressive.

  ‘Somebody wants putting away. You didn’t thump him? Didn’t tell him to get out of your life?’

  ‘He told me who he is, and that made a difference. He’s her husband, Sarge. Angela Reed’s husband.’

  Tranter swivelled on the slatted seat. ‘She didn’t have a husband.’

  ‘Oh yes she did. Him. They’d bin married six months. He says. Kinda kept it quiet.’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t he come forward…’

  ‘Says it’s irreverent.’

  ‘Irrelevant.’

  ‘Yeah. Says I oughto’ve got life, whatever her name. And it just isn’t right that they let me get away with it.’

  ‘On the murder there was no direct evidence. You were found not guilty, Harry. It clears you. You can’t be tried for it again. It’s called double jeopardy.’

  ‘He told me that,’ Harry said eagerly, pleased to find the two of them agreeing. ‘Just them words. Said I could safely tell him the truth — that I’d killed her — and nobody could touch me now.’

  ‘Except him?’

  ‘Thassit. Except him. He said it kind of elected him to do it, on behalf of justice.’

  ‘Did he say how he was going to do it?’

  Harry screwed his toe into the path. ‘No.’

  ‘Or when?’

  ‘Nor that.’

  ‘He’s playing on your nerves. Waiting for you to crack.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘You don’t look nervous to me.’

  Harry turned his battered face and grinned. It was really the only expression that ever managed to break free from the maze of bumps and knobs and distortions, and it lit up his face, like a crumpled rose opening to the sun. ‘Oh I am, Sarge. Really I am.’

  The woman with the dog strolled past again. She could possibly have been in her late twenties, but every year had added something. The dog could have been an Alsatian, and it clearly adored every inch of her from toe to the top of her proud head, from walking pumps to knee-high stockings, to knickerbockers, to the blouse with the cape flaring over her shoulders, past the easy, confident smile to the smart, wide-brimmed hat tilted on her auburn hair. There was a hint of arrogance in her stride, more than a hint of confidence. She did not glance at them, but the swing of her hips indicated that she’d seen them, and had noted that they’d seen her.

  Harry’s eyes followed her, then drifted off. He said casually: ‘That’s him, there.’

  ‘That’s who — where?’

  ‘The chap pretending to be a gardener, hoeing that patch. That’s Vic Fletcher. It’s why I asked you to meet me in the park, to get a good look at him.’

  ‘That is Vic Fletcher?’ Tranter stared. ‘You could eat him for breakfast.’

  Harry said nothing.

  Fletcher would have been half Harry’s weight, the sergeant guessed, and perhaps five years younger. Put him at twenty-five to Harry’s thirty. He was slim — thin — in tight jeans and a T-shirt, no muscles enlivening his arms, no width to his chest. When he turned, aware of Harry but deliberately not gazing at him, Tranter saw a crisp, short hair trim, ginger hair, an incipient beard trying to disguise a weak chin, and a fleshy, soft mouth. Fletcher moved away, the hoe luring him behind a stand of shrubs.

  ‘Looks vicious to me,’ said the sergeant. ‘I bet rabbits move aside when he hoes round ’em.’

  ‘So what d’you reckon?’

  ‘Start running if he shows you his knuckles.’

  But Harry had been speaking the truth about his nerves. He was placidly patient. ‘Seriously, Sarge,’ he said gently. Somehow, a gentle and thoughtful Harry was more upsetting than a violent one.

  They both knew that any number of weapons could even out the physical differences. Any dark night would suffice.

  ‘Well…’ said Tranter, drawing in his last lungful of smoke before resuming his jogging. ‘If it was me, and I knew I hadn’t killed Angela Reed…’

  ‘Go easy with them ifs.’

  ‘And if I didn’t plan to leave the district…’

  ‘All my friends are here. You’re here, Sarge.’

  ‘So I am. If it was me, in those circumstances, I’d do my best to find out who did do it.’

  ‘That’s how I figured it. But you know me. I ain’t no great shakes at reasonin’ things. I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d need help, sort of. You know what I mean. And if you lot couldn’t find out who killed her…’

  ‘We had you, Harry.’

  ‘So what d’you suggest, Sarge?’

  Tranter got to his feet, stretched, bent and failed to touch his toes, straightened with his face red, and said: ‘Tell you what. I’ll ask around. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Then he trotted away on another circuit of the park, his small pot bobbing in front of him. Harry shrugged. He hadn’t expected much, so he wasn’t disappointed. He looked round for Vic Fletcher but couldn’t see him, so headed for the nearest exit, limping slightly. Harry was inclined to be over-trusting in his relationships. This did not extend to the police in general, but he’d always trusted Sergeant Tranter. With Tranter, he knew where he stood.

  The woman with the Alsatian strolled back, seated herself on the same bench, and searched in her shoulder bag for a dark brown cigarette, which she lit with a small lighter shaped like a .22 automatic pistol. The dog settled at her feet. She blew smoke at the empty sky and waited. She was a woman who could wait well, who could make a decorative exercise of waiting. The impression was that the surroundings, carefully landscaped by an artist, had been waiting themselves for exactly that poise, that angle of the fine-boned face, that alertness — even in repose — to bring life to the composition. The air was still, not breathing. She belonged.

  Two minutes later, Sergeant Tranter completed the circuit. He collapsed, puffing, beside her. She waited patiently until he could speak, knowing that she could give him fifty yards in a hundred.

  ‘That was him,’ he managed at last.

  ‘He looked nothing more than a tough layabout to me.’

  ‘Deceptive. You’ll have to make up your own mind.’

  ‘I said “looked”,’ she pointed out gently. ‘Nice smile, though. What did he tell you, Paul?’

  ‘That he’s being threatened by somebody called Vic Fletcher, who’s a groundsman here, or who’s borrowed a hoe for the day.’

  ‘I saw h
im. He was clearly observing you both. Threatened, did you say?’

  ‘Fletcher claims to have been Angela’s husband.’

  ‘Husband?’ She looked down as she tramped out the cigarette end. ‘Well now.’ The hat shadowed her face. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  ‘Which’d give him a legitimate claim, if he’s planning revenge.’

  ‘If that’s what he’s planning.’

  ‘I’m not sure you ought to interfere, Virginia.’

  When Virginia Brent smiled, her rather prim, even severe, mouth spread across her face as though eager to display its agility. Her lower lip, almost too full and verging on the sullen, stretched to match the upper one, and together they headed for her ears, the result pouching her cheeks, slanting her grey eyes, hoisting her eyebrows. It lasted only a moment, a passing comment on the sergeant’s remark, dismissing it as naïve and reminding him that he had no authority over her. Virginia Brent possessed an inexhaustible capacity for interference. She called it curiosity. Secretly, though she never expressed it aloud, she knew she was an addict. Her god was logic. Everything, she would tell you, had a logical explanation, once you had all the facts together. Illogical behavioural patterns irritated her, until she managed to hammer them into sensible logic. No mystery could be allowed to remain so. This one had haunted her for four years. How dared the sergeant call it interfering!

  So she flashed him her smile, and Tranter looked away, blinking.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ she said.

  ‘Harry? Oh, he’s just another toughie, who knows nothing else. Always had to fight for his crust, like the rest of us, and as he’s none too bright, how else could he do that except with his fists?’

  ‘He got six years for armed robbery, Paul. A gun, that means.’

  ‘He also got full remission, and he always claimed it was a toy, though we never managed to find it.’

  ‘All the same…’ She pulled at the dog’s ear, and he grumbled affectionately. ‘So you’d call him a thug?’

  ‘Not that.’ There were facets of Harry’s character that baffled Tranter, who hadn’t a subtle nature.

  ‘He was supposed to have unloaded Angela from the car at that lay-by, and killed her. Would he do that?’