Denial of Murder by Peter Turnbull Read Free Book Online Page B

less bright into some form of gainful employment … and … regrettably not a few became known to you people … mostly for petty crime but I am pleased to say that I don’t think we ever produced a career criminal. Oh … thank you,’ Derek Cogan reclined as Tom Ainsclough set his whisky down on the table in front of him. ‘This really has to be my last.’
    â€˜So … Derek,’ Ainsclough prompted, ‘not adding up and delivering, you were saying.’
    â€˜Yes.’ Derek Cogan sipped the whisky. ‘So after he was released from custody, Gordon went to live in a grubby little bedsit in Acton Town. It was not easy for him but he was courageously trying to rescue what little he could from the mess he’d made of his life. He was able to obtain a little translating work now and again but nothing ever became permanent. The convictions, you see, worked against him as the judge had said they would, so mostly he was on the dole and getting a little cash-in-hand work. In the early days he worked damned hard to keep away from the drink and he began to attend a non-conformist church which accepted him as a repentant sinner. You know, the old hallelujah handshake foxtrot, and he went along each Sunday for the human company more than anything else, you know the sketch, someone to have a chat with over coffee after the service. I would visit and write to him and let him have twenty pounds now and again, plus whatever mother could let him have out of her state pension … it was all we could afford. You don’t enter teaching for the money, that’s for sure, but the main thing was that Gordon was living cleanly and not sinking into crime. He also seemed to be avoiding the bottle.’
    â€˜Good for him.’ Yewdall raised her mineral water to her lips. ‘Was there any contact between him and his girlfriend? His ex-pupil?’
    â€˜Not that I know of,’ Derek Cogan replied, ‘but I would not be surprised if there had been some form of contact between them. I mean, they were utterly committed to each other, and he was on remand for just six months and so they could have picked things up upon his release and done so quite easily.’
    â€˜What was her name?’ Yewdall took her pen and notebook from her bag.
    â€˜Lysandra Smith.’ Cogan smiled. ‘Smith’s a bit of a common name, though not Lysandra … but you’ll most likely be easily able to trace her despite her common surname.’
    â€˜Really?’ Yewdall raised her eyebrows. ‘We will?’
    â€˜Yes … she will be in her early thirties now and along the way she has acquired a criminal record.’
    â€˜Oh …’ Yewdall smiled. ‘That will help us greatly. We will need to chat to her.’
    â€˜I thought it might.’ Derek Cogan held his glass but didn’t lift it from the table top. ‘Yes, once, a few years ago now, I read a small filler in the evening paper about a woman of that name and of the age she would have been, acquiring a conviction for shoplifting.’
    â€˜We can check that easily enough.’ Penny Yewdall wrote the name on her notepad. ‘Conviction might be spent but nothing is erased from the Police National Computer. Any and every conviction remains on record.’
    â€˜So I believe. Anyway, things settled down for Gordon,’ Derek Cogan continued, ‘bedsit living, dole, a few jobs, hand-outs from the family but eventually the drink became a failing with him. This stuff.’ Derek Cogan tapped the side of his glass. ‘I mean the heavy bevvy, not just a few beers in the evening but drinking bottles of spirits at home, and he hid the problem by drinking vodka …’
    â€˜Hid it?’ Yewdall queried.
    â€˜From himself,’ Cogan explained. ‘I mean he hid it from himself. Vodka has so few impurities you can demolish a full bottle of it in the evening and wake up the next morning