Rack, Ruin and Murder Read online

  But tonight, coming into the quiet flat, with everything just as she’d left it that morning, she savoured her pressure-free solitary home life after a busy and often frustrating day. Her pleasure was cut short when she saw the red light on the phone blinking an ominous welcome.

  ‘Not work…’ she groaned, pressing the ‘Play’ button. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been called out again straight away.

  ‘Hi, Jess!’ said Tom Palmer’s recorded voice cheerfully. ‘Fancy going out for a pint and a curry? Or, failing that, a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine?’

  She could easily ring and tell him no. Tom wouldn’t be offended. Theirs wasn’t that sort of relationship. But maybe Tom had had a gruesome day’s work and needed to unwind. He, too, lived alone. A friend in need is a friend indeed, as the saying went.

  Jess called the pathologist’s mobile number. ‘Got your message,’ she told him. ‘Yes, I would. I’d prefer Italian tonight, I think. Where?’

  ‘Meet you at the usual place in The Promenade in about an hour?’

  An hour later, Jess had showered and changed. Generally revitalised, she was sitting opposite Tom at an outside table, studying the menu. It wasn’t quite as warm for outside dining as it ought to have been, but it was still a fine evening. People were strolling by and the little tables under the trees looked so attractive, they’d decided to go for it. Tom, his mop of black hair tousled as he rubbed it as an aid to concentration, was inclined to a pasta option. Jess, who ate quite a lot of pasta in her flat, this being one of the few things she could cook (and in a hurry), was tempted towards the pollo alla griglia.

  Most people, seeing them, would have assumed them to be a couple. But they weren’t. They were, as Tom had once put it, ‘fellow refugees’. The brutal fact was that Jess’s occupation (face it, her mother was right) made a lot of people uneasy. So did his. Both of them found it stymied social chitchat to a remarkable degree.

  ‘I can understand it, in my case,’ Tom had confessed. ‘What do you do for a living? they ask me merrily. “I dissect corpses,” I tell them. That’s when they start sidling away from me and reaching for the garlic.’

  ‘In my case,’ Jess had explained, ‘they think I’m hell bent on ferreting out their secrets. I’ve come to the conclusion that half the population harbours guilty knowledge.’

  The result had been a friendship of colleagues that worked extremely well. The one thing Jess was determined on was that her mother should never find out about it. Seeing them here for example (God forbid!), she would scent romance. But it’s not romance, she thought wryly; I only hope it never becomes desperation. (Although that was unfair to Tom, who was excellent company.)

  When they’d ordered, Tom raised his glass of wine. ‘Cheers!’

  Jess responded.

  ‘I’m not going to talk shop.’ Tom set down his glass. ‘But with regard to that stiff you called me out to yesterday…’

  Jess groaned. ‘Go on…’ Then she brightened. ‘Hey? Do you know already what he died of?’

  ‘I’m not certain yet. But I think – I am fairly sure – it was from a combination of pills and alcohol. Also there are early signs of heart disease. He probably didn’t know about that himself yet, but it would have made him vulnerable. I’ve sent some samples over to the lab and I’ll have to wait for them to come back to me. But all the indications are there. He’d had a really good meal very shortly before he died. Beef and vegetables in a wine sauce, boeuf bourguignon or something like that. He hadn’t had any time at all, hardly, to begin digesting it. The whole thing was sitting in his stomach—’

  ‘Tom!’ begged Jess. ‘We are going to eat soon.’

  ‘Sorry, well, what I mean is, something with a strong flavour. If it were doctored, he wouldn’t have noticed. I toss this in as an observation rather than a suggestion. I’m not attempting to do your job.’

  ‘Aha!’ Jess looked thoughtful. ‘He was poisoned, is what you’re saying. You thought that when you first saw him.’

  ‘Thought you’d be interested, Sherlock. He could, of course, have taken the pills himself.’

  ‘He’d probably have gone to bed with a bottle of whisky and the pills, if he meant to do that. I don’t see him sitting down to French cuisine,’ Jess objected. ‘Although I realise that, if he wasn’t thinking straight, he might have done almost anything.’

  ‘Well, you work it out. But there’s another thing…’ Tom looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I’ve been turning over in my mind whether to mention this to you. I think I recognise his face, well, sort of.’

  ‘Tom!’ Jess squawked. ‘Why didn’t you phone through earlier?’

  ‘Hold on, it’s not so simple. As soon as I saw him on that sofa, I thought, Hello! I’ve seen you before, chum. But I don’t know where, that’s the problem. I can’t place him. You know how it is with a face that seems familiar but you can’t put it in context. It was recent, or fairly recently. I’ve run through in my mind all the places I’ve been and haven’t been able to come up with a location. It’s definitely not work-related. It’s been nagging at me. But all I can say is I’ve seen him but I don’t know where. As for his name, I don’t think I ever knew that.’

  ‘Was this sighting local?’ Jess pressed.

  ‘Well, maybe. It would still have to be somewhere I don’t usually go. That narrows the field. I hardly ever,’ said Tom phlegmatically, ‘party. Being jammed in an overheated room or club in a press of people who are all getting steadily drunk, yelling to make myself heard over horrible music, and totally unable to make out what’s being said to me – it’s not my idea of fun.’

  ‘The mind boggles, Mr Palmer, at the idea of the sort of party you get invited to!’ she told him.

  ‘OK’, if you’re hell-bent on going upmarket, I don’t like standing around in my one and only decent suit and a tie, holding a glass of plonk and being offered nothing to eat but peanuts and canapés that have been in the fridge all day and gone soggy. I dislike crowds. It’s one of the reasons I go on walking holidays and it’s one of the reasons I actually like my job.’

  ‘The corpses don’t answer back or spill beer over you?’ she suggested. I must be getting light-headed, she thought. It’s the wine on an empty stomach. Bring on the food!

  ‘I’m not a nutter,’ he argued, ‘I don’t talk to the subjects I’m investigating. I examine them at the behest of you and others like you. I try to find out how they spent their last hours and I try, as far as it’s possible, to treat their mortal remains with respect.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘So you haven’t seen our victim – when he was alive – in a social context.’

  ‘I don’t think so…’ Tom still sounded uncertain. More firmly he added, ‘I haven’t seen him in a work context, for sure. I can’t think, for the life of me, where I have seen him. But I do know I have seen that face recently, so there.’

  The food arrived and Tom’s attention slipped away.

  Jess couldn’t dismiss the subject so quickly. ‘Seen him on television?’ she asked eagerly.

  He paused in painstakingly twirling spaghetti round his fork. ‘Nope. Don’t think so.’

  ‘In the newspapers?’ Jess cast about furiously for where Tom might have spotted a similar face.

  He frowned. ‘Ah… no… don’t think so. Pretty sure not.’

  Jess made a last throw of the dice. ‘He’s not someone you’ve met up with on one of your hikes?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘No, I did think of that and decided he wasn’t. He didn’t look like a rambler or walker of any sort. Too flabby. All I can say with reasonable certainty is: I saw his mug recently. I’ll keep trying. It will come to me. But not right now. How’s your chicken?’

  Jess recognised the subject of the victim was closed. ‘Let me know,’ she said, ‘the moment you remember, won’t you?’

  ‘Um…’ was the reply through a mouthful of pasta, accompanied by vigorous nodding.

  With that, she had to be content.

/>   Chapter 9

  They gathered in Carter’s office the following morning to discuss their progress, or lack of it. It was the third day of their investigation and a critical moment. From now on, the trail would grow colder.

  Jess set the ball rolling, describing her visit to Bridget Harwell’s home. Morton then contributed a breakdown of his activities the previous day, his conversations with the Colleys, Sneddons and Seb Pascal, the discovery of the burned-out wreck in the quarry, and gave his conclusions.

  ‘I don’t trust any of the Colleys. That doesn’t mean they’ve got anything to do with this case. That sort never gives you a straight answer and, because of that, you can never rule them out of an investigation. Time wasters, probably.’

  Morton snorted. ‘Take young Gary. He says he went into town after he left us outside the gates of Balaclava House. He also says he phoned his family on his mobile to tell them something was going on involving Monty Bickerstaffe, whom he’d seen sitting in a police car. His dad, Dave Colley, says that in the early evening his old mother went snooping around up the lane and saw the private ambulance leave, so they learned someone had died. But Seb Pascal, the garage owner, says he saw Monty being driven away by Mrs Harwell, long before that. He immediately phoned Gary who told him about the death. But that must have been before Mrs Colley senior went to spy out the land. Gary shouldn’t have known about a body at Balaclava. All he saw was Monty being helped into a police car. He stopped and asked one of the uniformed men about it and, when we came out of the house, spoke to me and to Inspector Campbell. We sent him on his way.’

  ‘For my money,’ said Jess, ‘he didn’t go into town. He doubled back over the fields and watched what was going on at Balaclava. He made his own deductions and took the news to his family. That would explain the discrepancy. His grandma doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘So Gary bends the truth,’ Carter had commented. He rubbed a finger over his chin thoughtfully. ‘The Colleys, as a family unit, bend the truth. Does it, in this case, matter? Or are we being led down a road going nowhere?’

  ‘Probably,’ was Morton’s prompt reply. ‘It’s what I said about the Colleys. They just can’t tell you the simple truth; and because you know they’re not telling it straight, you waste time on them. I’ll talk to Gary again, try and shake him up a bit. If he’s messing us around, he’ll find out he made a mistake!’

  ‘Have we got anything on any of the Colleys?’ Carter asked.

  ‘Organising illegal hare-coursing,’ said Morton. ‘Both Dave and Gary were fined. Plus, in Gary’s case, driving with an out-of-date tax disc. Someone ought to check whether either of them holds a valid gun licence. If they do, perhaps they shouldn’t. The daughter, Tracy Colley, was selling pirated DVDs around the pubs a couple of years ago. She was helping out a man friend. The man friend was convicted. She was cautioned. Mrs Maggie Colley has twice been up before the magistrates for being drunk and disorderly in local pubs. Even the elder Mrs Colley’s got a record. She punched another old woman in a post office queue. The police were called; she refused to leave, became abusive and then threw another punch at one of the constables. It took two burly coppers to haul her out. Remarkable for her age. They’re a lovely family, all round, and well known to the local police. But they’re not the Mafia.’

  ‘Sneddon?’ asked Jess.

  Morton shook his head. ‘Hard-working, law-abiding local farmers. I looked up Seb Pascal, the chap who keeps the petrol station, for good measure. Nothing is known against him, either. He did seem uneasy when I walked into his garage minimart and showed my ID. But a lot of people do. It doesn’t mean they’re guilty of anything. He’s got a shaven-headed yob cleaning cars for him. He didn’t like my turning up, but I doubt he’s into anything big time.’

  ‘So,’ Jess said, ‘we’re looking for joyriders who went down Toby’s Gutter Lane very late the night before last. The police had left Balaclava House and the Sneddons had gone to bed. It’s quite possible the car has nothing to do with our dead man. On the other hand, it seems a bit of a coincidence. We do need to find whoever was driving it. Local police are helping, but so far without luck. No one has reported a car being stolen and that, in itself, is odd. You know, Tansy Peterson, Bridget Harwell’s daughter, said something to me about whoever was responsible being someone driving through. As she pointed out, Balaclava House is tucked away on that narrow lane, but it isn’t remote from civilisation. The lane is just off a main road. Plus we have yet to establish how our dead man got to Balaclava House.’

  ‘The burned-out car has to have come from outside the area,’ agreed Morton, nodding. ‘The wreck’s being examined and I’m waiting on a phone call. If you’ll excuse me a tick, sir, I’ll call the forensic boys and ask how they’re getting on.’

  He went outside the room into the corridor. They could hear his voice murmuring into his mobile.

  ‘The dead man must be missed somewhere by now,’ Carter fretted. ‘What about appointments, business meetings? Hadn’t he a wife or partner, a secretary, anyone at all?’

  The door opened and Morton stuck his head through. ‘Not much joy yet. They are pretty sure the car is – or was before someone got happy with a box of matches – a Lexus.’

  ‘A Lexus!’ exclaimed Carter so loudly that the other two stared at him in surprise.

  ‘It is just possible,’ he said more calmly, ‘that we might have a lead at last.’

  * * *

  Sometimes hard graft got you a little further on in an investigation: endless interviews, routine elimination of possibilities, and meticulous reconstruction of events. Sometimes, just very occasionally, you had a bit of luck.

  So Ian Carter was telling himself as he drove, once more, towards Weston St Ambrose, this time with Jess Campbell for company. Neither of them had expected to be making the journey this morning, but that was detection work for you. The identification of the wreckage as belonging to a Lexus might be the key to open the door. It might be leading them up the garden path. There was only one way to find out and they were taking it.

  ‘Hope for the best and prepare for the worst,’ he informed Jess. ‘William of Orange is supposed to have said that,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘And did he really?’ asked Jess.

  ‘It’s disputed.’

  ‘Oh.’ They were progressing at a crawl, slowed by a tractor making a stately progress ahead of them along the narrow twisting road.

  ‘That room upstairs at Balaclava,’ Jess reminded him. ‘The one so nice and clean but used recently. That ties into the mix somewhere. I mean, I know it would be good to know who the owner of the burned-out car is. But somehow or other, we have to find out who has been using that room and exactly when.’

  The tractor turned off at last into a field. Carter accelerated. ‘We do need to find out about the mystery visitors, I agree. But let’s get this car business sorted first. Perhaps this is a wasted journey. But it’s got to be made and the Hemmingses have to be questioned about it. What’s the worst? They may know nothing about it and their missing guest may have contacted them to say he had to fly to New York at short notice, or some such reason for his absence. Then we can rule him and them out.’

  ‘The worst would be, I suppose, if neither of the Hemmingses is at home this morning,’ observed Jess. I’m beginning to sound like Phil Morton, she thought. I mustn’t start being negative.

  ‘Billy might not be, but we might strike lucky with Terri. That’s why I’ve brought you along.’ Carter added hastily, ‘It is your case and if this does lead to identifying our corpse, you need to be there.’

  ‘I’m not coming along to protect you from Terri Hemmings, then, sir?’ Jess risked asking. Carter had given her a brief but vivid description of the lady.

  ‘No!’ he said sharply. Then he relaxed. ‘Although it is just possible that she might get the wrong idea if I turn up alone.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘Or worse, Billy might.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Carter cleared his
throat. ‘Of course, I’m aware it could just be coincidence that the wreckage is that of a Lexus. Some coppers don’t believe in that sort of luck. In my experience it happens all the time, and usually turns out not to be quite as coincidental as it first looks. The Hemmingses expected a guest driving a Lexus at the old schoolhouse the evening of the day the body was discovered. The guest didn’t turn up. Nor, by the time I arrived outside the house, had this mysterious guest sent any message. Of course, he may have turned up at the party twenty minutes after I left, although I didn’t pass a Lexus being driven towards Weston St Ambrose. Or, as I was saying, he may have sent a message or phoned to explain his absence. In either case, he’s not missing and we can cross him off the list. But, I repeat, we have to check it out.’

  * * *

  The dogs were Jack Russell terriers. As Jess and Carter got out of the car before the old schoolhouse, they set up a noisy barking that brought Terri Hemmings, in tight white jeans and clinging T-shirt, to her front door. The terriers rushed past her to the gate and began jumping up at the newcomers. Terri peered towards them in a way that made Jess wonder if she were just a little shortsighted but too vain to admit it.

  ‘Oh,’ she said at last, recognising Ian Carter, ‘it’s you again.’

  ‘Can we come in and speak to you, Mrs Hemmings?’ he asked politely.

  ‘If you must, I suppose,’ was her unenthusiastic reply. ‘Although I don’t know what you want. Hang on; I’ll shut the dogs in. They won’t bite but they get under your feet.’

  She called the two terriers and, with some difficulty, chivvied them indoors. She then disappeared and returned a few minutes later.