Rack, Ruin and Murder Read online

  Jess stopped and got out. As she approached the scene, she could hear the young man abusing his captors and shouting out it was ‘a plant’.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jess called, holding up her ID so that the two uniformed men could see it.

  ‘Who’s she?’ demanded the shaven-headed young man, pausing in his struggle and glaring at her.

  ‘Inspector Campbell,’ she told him.

  ‘Sending ruddy inspectors to pick me up now, is it?’ he demanded of one of the officers holding him.

  ‘Alfie Darrow, ma’am,’ the same officer called out to Jess. ‘He’s Weston St Ambrose’s local drugs pusher, a regular Mr Big, aren’t you, Alfie?’

  ‘They framed me!’ Darrow yelled at Jess.

  The other officer produced a small plastic bag containing a heap of pills from her jacket. ‘Under the floorboards upstairs, ma’am.’

  ‘Do you need any back-up?’ Jess asked.

  ‘No, ma’am, Alfie knows he’s coming with us. He’s just going through the motions.’

  ‘It’s only bloody Ecstasy!’ yelled Darrow.

  ‘How do you know, if it’s not yours?’ asked the officer.

  Darrow hung ludicrously between his captors like a disjointed marionette. He was staring thoughtfully at Jess. ‘You’re plain clothes, that mean you’re CID?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him.

  ‘You investigating that murder at Balaclava House?’

  The hair on the back of Jess’s neck prickled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I got a bit of information for you, maybe,’ Darrow said. ‘How about they – ‘ he glanced up at the officers who held his arms – ‘let me off with a caution and I tell you what I know?’

  ‘How about I charge you with withholding information from a murder inquiry?’

  Darrow looked crestfallen. ‘You don’t know what gratitude is, you lot,’ he said bitterly.

  Chapter 12

  ‘I’m doing you a favour,’ declared Alfie Darrow.

  He sat on the uncomfortable wooden chair on one side of the interview room table. Jess and Morton sat on the other.

  ‘I know you,’ said Morton to him. ‘You work for Seb Pascal.’

  ‘That’s right – and I remember you, and all!’ retorted Alfie. ‘You came asking questions of old Pascal and you were in the right place.’

  ‘Suppose you tell us…’ Jess began.

  But Alfie’s mind was on a track of its own, pursuing his many grievances. ‘He’s a miserable old git, Seb. He’s a ruddy slave driver. He keeps on about me learning a trade; but all I do is the rotten boring or dirty jobs he doesn’t want. I don’t owe him nothing!’ He glared fiercely at the other two, defying them to argue the point.

  ‘What’s this got to do with what happened at Balaclava House, Alfie?’ Jess asked patiently.

  ‘I don’t owe him nothing!’ Alfie repeated with greater emphasis. ‘I’m not ratting on him like I was grassing up a mate. He’s not a mate. I told you, he’s a bad-tempered old sod, always finding fault.’

  ‘All right,’ Morton said wearily. ‘So now we know what you think of your employer. What’s all this got to do with us? What’s Pascal done that you’re going to grass – tell us about?’

  Alfie leaned across the wooden table, looking earnest. ‘I got form,’ he said.

  ‘We know, Alfie,’ they chorused.

  ‘You cops have picked me up lots of times. I reckon it’s persecution. I don’t sell anything heavy, only Ecstasy and grass. I ain’t a Colombian drug baron. To hear them talk, you’d think I was. They said I might go to jail this time. It ain’t fair.’

  ‘You mean,’ Morton observed, ‘that you’ve only been caught with those two substances in your possession with intent to supply. How do we know what else you’ve peddled?’

  ‘See?’ said Alfie. ‘You’re all the ruddy same.’

  ‘We’re not going to bargain with you,’ Jess told him. ‘But cooperating with us in our investigation would go in your favour. That is, if you’ve really got something to tell us?’ she added sceptically. ‘You’re not going to tell us a load of fairy stories, I hope? This is going to be something that checks out, when we look into it?’

  ‘Course it will,’ said Alfie virtuously.

  ‘Go on, then!’ ordered Morton.

  But Alfie was determined to enjoy his moment of being in charge of the situation. ‘How about another cup of tea?’

  Eventually, he began talking. ‘He’s an old misery—’

  Morton groaned and put his head in his hands.

  Hastily Alfie continued, ‘Like I told you. But he’s got some funny old ways with him too, has Seb. After I’d been working there for a while, I noticed that quite often he’d slip out, mid-morning, and go walking up the road towards Toby’s Gutter.’

  His listeners sat up.

  ‘Then…’ Alfie smirked, pleased at their reaction. ‘Then I began to make a note of it, exactly what time he went, how long he was gone, when he came back. I also noticed something else. He always seemed to leave after old Monty Bickerstaffe had walked past the garage on his way into town. I thought to myself, “There’s a connection there!” You know,’ added Alfie, ‘I reckon I’d make a good detective.’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Morton told him.

  ‘So, one morning when things were really slack, I told Auntie Maureen, who works behind the till in the shop, that I’d got a hangover and I was going to sit down, behind the car wash, for a while. Then I slipped across the road and followed old Seb. I could see him up ahead of me, walking really fast. He never looked back once to see me following. He turned into Toby’s Gutter and just about two minutes later, so did I. But I couldn’t see him! It was like he’d vanished. I’d no idea where he’d gone; there’s nothing in Toby’s Gutter except that creepy old house. Well, not until you get to the Colleys’ place and I didn’t think Seb had had time to get that far.

  ‘Then I saw someone was coming down the lane towards me and I jumped into the ditch, quick. It was a woman. I peered out and saw her go into the gates to the house. I got a closer look at her, too. It was Rosie Sneddon, old Pete Sneddon’s missus. She buys petrol regular at our place. “Hello!” I said to myself. “I’m beginning to get the picture here! So that’s where Seb gets to.”’ Alfie sniggered. ‘They were having it off behind old Pete’s back. It made me laugh. Pete is nearly as big a misery as Seb.

  ‘I crept out of the ditch and went real carefully after her. I saw her push open the door to the house. It wasn’t locked. I thought that was strange, but it wasn’t. I don’t know if Seb has a key and he opened it and left it for her. Anyway, she went inside and I heard her call out, “Seb! Are you there?”’

  Alfie smiled in a singularly unpleasant way. ‘I followed after a couple of minutes. I stood in that gloomy old hallway and listened. Cor, that’s a funny old place, it really is. It’s like something outa one of them horror films. You don’t know what might come creeping out of one of the corners. I’d liked to have taken a good look round. But I could hear voices upstairs, so I went up, really slow and careful, and followed the sound. They were in one of the bedrooms.’ Alfie gave a snort. ‘She must be desperate for it, that’s all I can say! He ain’t no pin-up, Seb. Anyhow, they’d closed the door so I couldn’t see them; but I could hear them and the bed creaking.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘And?’ asked Morton.

  ‘And I came away, went back to the garage, before Auntie Maureen got suspicious and went looking for me.’ Alfie leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘I reckon that’s worth something, in’t it? It’s information, that’s what that is.’

  ‘You never saw anyone else in or around Balaclava House, or Toby’s Gutter Lane?’ Jess asked him. ‘A stranger?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Alfie. ‘But you could always go and arrest old Seb, couldn’t you?’ He grinned hopefully.

  ‘One other thing,’ Jess said. ‘You haven’t taken a car and done a spot of joyriding lately, have you?’


  Alfie’s smile vanished. He looked horrified and insulted. ‘What? Trying to pin something else on me? I haven’t done anything like that since I was a nipper, about fourteen. I work with cars. I don’t need to go hotwiring one and driving around. That’s kid’s stuff.’

  ‘You haven’t heard of anyone else doing it, lately?’

  Alfie eyed her. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘How would I know?’

  * * *

  ‘How reliable do you judge Darrow?’ asked Ian Carter.

  ‘As a human being, not reliable at all,’ returned Jess promptly. ‘But as an informant in this case, I’m inclined to believe him. He could just be taking revenge because of some grudge against a boss he doesn’t like. It’s a pity we couldn’t get any usable DNA from the blanket on the bed in the room. But the lab thinks another cover was thrown over it. That cover is missing and it suggests whoever used the room took it away with them. It could have been a sheet, quite lightweight and easy to fold up into a small package. Whoever used the room, Pascal and Rosie Sneddon or anyone else, was very, very careful.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, Darrow’s a horrible little yob,’ growled Morton. ‘He doesn’t know the difference between truth and fiction. He could have driven that car into the quarry, no matter what he says now. I can imagine him torching it and dancing round the flames, whooping with joy. On the other hand, he does work with cars all the time and probably has plenty of opportunity to take one of them out for a spin. Remind me never to leave my car at Seb Pascal’s garage for any reason. The thought of Alfie Darrow tinkering with it makes my hair stand on end. Admittedly, joyriders are generally kids. Alfie’s getting too old for it, just like he said.’

  He paused. ‘He’s probably telling the truth about the occasion he followed Pascal to Balaclava House. It’s the sneaky sort of thing he’d do. That bit about jumping down into the ditch when he saw a woman coming, that rings true as well. And he described the interior of the house. Of course, he might have been in there before. He isn’t admitting he knew the front door was left unlocked but he could’ve known. How do we know he wasn’t the one using that bedroom?’

  ‘I think he’s telling the truth. He followed Pascal.’ Jess smiled. ‘I don’t see Alfie cleaning the room so thoroughly. He’d have left his fingerprints all over it and probably other traces of his presence.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Carter. ‘So, he’s telling us the truth and not just trying to get himself out of trouble and his employer into it. We have to explain the use of one of the rooms upstairs at Balaclava. If this means we can, and it should turn out it’s nothing to do with the murder, we’ll be making progress by eliminating a diversion from the main inquiry. If, on the other hand, it plays a part… You’ll have to speak to Pascal again, Phil. Jess, you tackle the woman. You’ll have to get her away from her husband somehow. It’ll look less suspicious if a woman officer goes to the farm; but Sneddon will still want to know what you’re doing there, if he spots you.’

  Jess heaved a sigh. ‘I’ll have to think up some story on my way over. I really hope Alfie isn’t spinning us a tale here. It would be helpful if we could eliminate the mystery of the phantom visitor to Balaclava from enquiries, if nothing else.’

  ‘But what about Taylor?’ Morton asked. ‘Could this solve part of that mystery too? How he got to be slumped on Monty’s sofa when found, I mean.’ Morton’s manner grew enthusiastic. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t eliminate Pascal and Rosie Sneddon but instead drops them right in it. Let’s say Rosie and Seb have had their usual fun upstairs and are setting off home. She leaves first. They don’t want to risk being seen together.

  ‘Rosie finds Taylor collapsed over the wheel of his car in the lane outside the house. Or he’s managed to get out of the car and is lying in the road unconscious. She runs back in to tell Pascal. Yes, that’s the most likely.’ Morton was warming to his theory. ‘They panic. They’re not supposed to be there, not supposed to be together. Between them they drag Taylor inside – leaving the scuffmarks we found – and leave him in the room downstairs. They know Monty will find him when he gets back from his daily walk into town. They hope Taylor will still be alive and Monty will summon help. They were behaving callously but their first concern was to keep their secret from being found out. It blotted out any other consideration in their minds. But, when they’d got him inside and propped him up on the sofa there, they realised he’d died on them. They had a dead body on their hands, not a sick man. That,’ concluded Morton, ‘sounds pretty feasible to me.’

  ‘Yes, it does, Phil.’ Carter nodded. ‘But what about Taylor’s burned-out Lexus? We know from Pete Sneddon’s account that it was driven down to the quarry during the night following the discovery of the body and torched. Where was it during the entire day when the body was found and we were all running around the house? If Pascal and Rosie found Jay Taylor dying, took him indoors and left him there, they must have done something with his car immediately because it had gone by the time Monty got home. I’m accepting, for argument’s sake, the hypothesis that Taylor drove himself to Toby’s Gutter Lane and then felt so unwell he stopped the car, got out and lurched towards the first house he came to – Balaclava.’

  ‘They hid the car during the day, sir. Pascal could have driven it back to his garage and parked it up behind the place. They didn’t want us to examine it in case either of them had left prints on it. Neither of them could retrieve nor move it while SOCO and a search team were at the house and in the grounds. Pascal went back at night, drove it to the quarry and torched it,’ Morton offered.

  ‘If it were parked on or near the petrol station premises, Alfie would’ve seen it,’ argued Jess. ‘Alfie doesn’t miss anything going on around that garage, we’ve discovered that!’

  ‘So they parked it somewhere else. There have to be plenty of places to hide a car round there.’ Morton was not going to give up his cherished deductions without a fight.

  Carter still looked unconvinced. ‘We won’t find out until you’ve spoken again to both parties. There is another flaw in your idea, Sergeant, I’m sorry to point out. Why was Jay Taylor driving up Toby’s Gutter Lane in the first place? If he was on the main road and felt ill, why didn’t he just pull over and try to flag down the next car to come along?’

  ‘He was confused… he was looking for a human habitation and first aid…’ Morton shrugged.

  ‘So, who slipped him the fatal overdose?’ Carter asked. ‘Who doctored his last meal? It wasn’t Pascal or his lady love.’

  ‘We know we’ve got two separate events,’ Morton persisted. ‘One person stuffed his last meal with crushed pills. We don’t know who that person was. But we do know Taylor found his way to Balaclava House. I reckon it happened the way I said. Pascal and Mrs S took him inside and dumped him there.’

  But that’s all wrong! thought Jess. Phil thinks he’s cracked it, but I’m sure it didn’t happen that way. Seb and Rosie wouldn’t have emptied Taylor’s pockets. Why should they try and slow identification of the dead man? Phil’s theory is plausible but it depends on too much speculation about what two other people did. She moved slightly to her right, which brought her to the window. She glanced down at the unlovely spectacle of the car park with its rows of cars, all sorts of cars, even a Lexus that she knew belonged to Carter. The pale late-afternoon sun of this time of year was sinking already. A ray beamed through the window and struck her face with an unexpected warm caress. It also dazzled her and made her turn quickly back to face the room. She saw that both men were looking at her, waiting for some comment. Morton looked like a man who had just pulled off a difficult conjuring trick. Carter’s green-brown eyes, fixed on her, were harder to read.

  ‘I don’t buy it.’ She spoke up firmly; and Morton gave her a reproachful look. He was a conjuror not receiving the expected round of applause, and she was a colleague not giving support. ‘Sorry, Phil,’ she added because she felt she’d let him down. But she didn’t agree with him and she couldn’t just let it go unchalleng
ed.

  Carter, observing them and probably reading both their minds, raised his eyebrows and asked, ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s that house, sir. It’s the key somehow. Taylor didn’t just stumble into it by chance. Nor was he helped indoors by Pascal and Rosie Sneddon, just because they happened to be there – and to be leaving as he collapsed outside. Taylor was there because he wanted to be there, or someone else wanted him there. Balaclava House holds secrets.’

  Chapter 13

  Jess had no idea, when she began her drive to the Sneddons’ farm, how she was going to explain her wish to speak to Rosie Sneddon alone. Morton was to tackle Pascal. Already the rain had settled in, breaking the long dry spell. The drizzle had turned to a heavy fall overnight. A brief but violent shower had deluged them again this morning at breakfast-time. The road surface glittered with a myriad bright spots dancing along it before her as she drove. Sometimes they were bright enough momentarily to dazzle her. She put up a hand and pulled down the sun visor, hoping the recent downpour wouldn’t have kept Sneddon near to his house. It would suit her best if the farmer was well out of the way, working on his land a good distance from the farmyard, and she’d find Rosie at home alone.

  She turned into Toby’s Gutter Lane. Here the rain had filled the many dips in the road producing puddles that sent up muddy sprays as she lurched over them. This would leave her car in a terrible mess, patterned like an army vehicle with khaki patches. She’d have to take it along to the car wash. But not Pascal’s.

  She’d reached Balaclava House and slowed to a crawl to look across at it. It presented a desolate aspect, lonely and deserted. The sadness sprang from so many sources. It represented the failure of what must once have been confidence and hope for the future, built on the success of a business enterprise. Ironically, if Monica Farrell’s history of the Bickerstaffe biscuit factory was correct, that confidence and prosperity had itself been built on a failed enterprise, bogged down in the bloody mud of the Crimea. She felt a pang of pity for the wretched soldiers, betrayed by the ineptitude of their leaders and the government of the day, and with nothing but an army-issue Bickerstaffe dry biscuit to console them.