Rack, Ruin and Murder Read online

  ‘No drugs paraphernalia,’ pointed out Morton, completing his tour. ‘No empty beer cans, food wrappers or other rubbish, like you’d expect.’

  ‘Someone’s cleared it all out. Let’s suppose,’ Jess went on, ‘whoever left the dead man downstairs knew about this room, came up here and had a lightning tidy-up. But whoever it was couldn’t have had much time. Call in and request a Scenes of Crime crew to come out. I want them here before the body’s moved.’

  Morton shuffled his feet unhappily. ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘I’ll justify my decision and the expense!’ Jess said sharply. ‘And it is my decision.’

  Phil flushed and looked mulish but accepted that argument was pointless. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘with luck, Scenes of Crime will be able to pick up a fingerprint or two here, as you say. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and there will be some DNA on that blanket. There should be if it’s been used for what I think it has.’

  They went back downstairs and outside. One of the two constables came across to them.

  ‘Inspector Campbell, perhaps you ought to look at this, ma’am.’ The young constable’s voice was excited and they hurried towards the spot. He was pointing into the overgrown shrubbery.

  On their way they passed a long furrow scored in the gravel drive.

  ‘New, that,’ said Morton, indicating it.

  A short distance further on another similar mark showed in the disturbed gravel, ending at the edge of the shrubbery.

  The constable pointed at the jungle of overgrown bushes and unpruned trees. ‘There are some broken branches and trampled grass, Inspector, making a trail or a path. I didn’t want to disturb it any more but it seems to lead to a gap in the perimeter wall, on the road side.’

  ‘Good work!’ Jess exclaimed. ‘We’ll need a search team in there, too.’

  ‘No expense spared,’ muttered the unhappy Morton.

  ‘I know all about budgets, Phil, thank you. They are the detective’s ball and chain! But I don’t think Superintendent Carter will argue over this one. Quite apart from an unidentified body where no body should be found, this whole scene bristles with unexplained oddities.’

  Morton nodded reluctant agreement. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, as they made their way back to the main gates. ‘Do you think someone brought chummy in that way? Not via those gates, but through the gap in the wall, dragged or carried him through the shrubbery, on to the drive and up to the front door, his heels dragging along in the gravel?’

  ‘Well, to get him through those would have been nearly impossible.’ Jess pointed at the rusted front gates. ‘They haven’t been opened properly in years and must be stuck in that position. One or two people, encumbered with a corpse or a dying man, couldn’t have done it. There has to be a different way in. Yes, almost certainly they came through the shrubbery. I doubt one person could have carried him so far. I reckon we have a murder scene here and we’re looking for either two murderers or one murderer and an accomplice.’

  Morton opened his mouth to answer but before he could, a blue two-seater roadster, driven by a woman, came bouncing along the uneven surface of Toby’s Gutter Lane. The constable at the gates stepped forward and flagged it down. The woman driver had already braked. She came to a halt and called out, ‘Who’s in charge? My name is Harwell.’

  * * *

  Jess hadn’t expected Bridget Harwell to turn up in a sports car. It seemed too carefree for the occasion. The constable was bending down and explaining, Jess knew, that Mrs Harwell couldn’t bring her car on to the property because more tracks would confuse the scene and, in any case, the gates didn’t open. The driver got out and began to walk briskly towards Jess.

  ‘You can’t go in at the gates on foot, either! You can’t go on to the property!’ the constable said loudly, intercepting her.

  ‘I know, I know! You’ve made it clear.’ Bridget Harwell waved him aside.

  From inside the police car where he still waited, Jess saw Monty gesticulating wildly. The contortions of his mouth suggested he was uttering curses. His niece hadn’t noticed him. Jess hurried down to the gates and slipped through the gap to meet the newcomer. She couldn’t help but feel curious.

  ‘I’m Bridget Harwell,’ the new arrival said again for Jess’s benefit. She spoke courteously but her eyes assessed Jess at the same time as Jess was assessing her, and she kept her no-nonsense manner. ‘Where’s my uncle? Is he OK?’

  She had a nervous, brittle way of speaking and Jess didn’t know whether this was due to the unusual circumstances or just a habit. Bridget Harwell was in her mid forties with a slightly faded prettiness. She was a small woman, neatly built, with thick, expertly bobbed ash-blond hair. Standing before her, Jess felt gawky and unfeminine. She pulled herself together and told herself she was here as a police officer and this wasn’t the moment to worry that she couldn’t have afforded the designer jeans and cherry-red sweater that looked like, and probably was, cashmere.

  ‘I’m Inspector Campbell!’ The words reminded both herself and the newcomer that she was, here, in charge. ‘Your uncle is over there, in the police car.’ She walked up to it and opened the door. ‘Come on, Monty, you can get out now. Your niece is here.’

  ‘Thank you, I am perfectly all right where I am,’ retorted Monty, arms folded.

  Bridget Harwell descended on the police car and took effortless control. ‘Now, stop that, Uncle Monty! Be sensible for once. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Feeling?’ Monty gaped at her, speechless for the moment. ‘Bloody furious, if you want to know. Some bugger has dumped a corpse in my house. The cops are crawling all over the place. You’ve turned up to kidnap me and you ask me how I feel?’

  Bridget turned to Jess. ‘He seems to be OK,’ she said with relief. ‘Just the same as usual, anyway.’

  Her exasperation bubbled beneath the surface of her practical manner but, thought Jess, she’s controlling it well.

  Bridget continued briskly, ‘He’s always a cantankerous old horror. Still he is getting on in years and I don’t think he ought to hang about here in the circumstances. I’ll take him with me, all right?’ She fixed Jess with an enquiring look.

  Jess found herself annoyingly distracted by the thought that either Mrs Harwell had taken a couple of minutes before coming here to fix her mascara, or she always walked round all day immaculately made up like that. Why, Jess asked herself, does mascara invariably run when I apply it? Is it because I buy the cheap stuff?

  ‘Don’t want to go with you,’ yelled Monty to his niece, from within the police car. ‘I want to go back in my own house.’

  ‘We’ve been through all that, Mr Bickerstaffe,’ Jess called patiently. ‘Come on, you know you can’t go back indoors.’

  ‘What about his things?’ Bridget asked. ‘He’ll need at least an overnight bag.’

  Jess grimaced. ‘Sorry, we’ve got experts coming out to look the place over. We can’t remove anything until they’ve been.’

  Mrs Harwell accepted that with a sigh, putting up her hand to one wing of bobbed hair and patting it absently. ‘I suppose I can drive him into Cheltenham and fix him up with some togs.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the clothes I’ve got on!’ argued Monty but there was a note of defeat in his voice.

  ‘You can’t sleep in them, Uncle Monty, and you’ll need soap and a razor and so on. It’s all right, leave it to me.’ To Jess she added confidingly, ‘He’s been a bit of a worry to us for years. It’s a good thing this didn’t happen yesterday. I was up in London all day and wouldn’t have been here to help.’

  Monty’s features had twisted in distress at the mention of the soap and razor. He opened his mouth to protest but then surrendered and hauled himself, muttering, from the police car.

  ‘I’ve written down my address, my home phone and my mobile numbers,’ Bridget went on to Jess, producing a sheet of paper. ‘So, if it’s OK with you, I’ll just put my uncle into my car, and then nip back for a word, is th
at all right?’

  Jess was beginning to understand how Monty felt. She watched him being led away and chivvied into the little sports car where he sat wedged in the passenger seat, scowling. Bridget secured his safety strap, rather as she might have buckled a toddler into a buggy. She returned at the same businesslike pace.

  ‘You can’t tell me exactly what’s going on, I suppose,’ she said to Jess, ‘and I quite understand. But who is the stiff in there?’ She pointed at the house.

  ‘We don’t know, Mrs Harwell, and your uncle says he doesn’t know him. I have to be honest and say that it’s difficult to believe the dead man could be a complete stranger, apparently dropped from the sky. Why in this house? There must be some connection, surely?’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t oblige us by taking a look?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think I know him!’ objected Bridget Harwell at once.

  It seemed that was going to be the cry from the whole Bickerstaffe clan. Jess felt herself growing obstinate and less sensitive to any delicate feelings Mrs Harwell might have.

  ‘Someone has to know who he is. He might be a passing acquaintance and Mr Bickerstaffe may have forgotten him. It could be someone he hasn’t seen for a while. That and the shock…’ Jess hoped she sounded persuasive.

  ‘Uncle Monty isn’t forgetful but he is contrary. He may have decided to be awkward.’ Bridget sighed. ‘You’re in a fix. You have to put a name to – to the dead man, I understand that. I admit I’d like to know who he is and why he’s in my uncle’s home. Lead on, then, I’ll take a look – a brief look, mind! I’m not hanging about in there.’

  On their way indoors Jess apologised for the request. ‘I know it’s not a pleasant thing to ask you to do.’

  Bridget only waved the apology away. In the living room, she looked down at the dead man and murmured, ‘Cripes!’ She studied him a further moment, and shook her head.

  ‘Can’t help you. I don’t know him from Adam. How did he get there?’ She wrinkled her nose fastidiously. ‘He whiffs a bit. Can we go outside before I throw up, too?’

  ‘Of course, thank you for trying to help. We appreciate it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Bridget was already heading for the door.

  Outside she drew a deep breath of air. ‘I hope no one is going to ask me to do anything like that again. You’ll be in touch, I dare say?’

  They watched the little blue car roar away.

  ‘Poor old fellow,’ said the constable sympathetically.

  Jess agreed but couldn’t say so aloud. In any case, there was a distraction.

  ‘Someone else coming,’ observed the constable.

  A red car was making stately progress along Toby’s Gutter Lane towards Balaclava House. It had just passed Bridget Harwell’s two-seater and now drew up outside the gates. The new vehicle wasn’t unfamiliar.

  ‘It’s the pathologist,’ Jess informed the constable, and went to greet the newcomer.

  A stocky young man with a shock of black hair had clambered out of the car and made his way to the boot, where he stooped, head down beneath the opened lid, to rummage among the contents.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ Jess called. ‘You got here quickly.’

  Tom Palmer emerged backwards from the boot, clasping a disposable protective suit. ‘As it happened, Inspector Campbell, I got a call from your boss telling me you had a suspicious death. I was just settling down to a well-earned mug of tea, too. He said you were out here and you’d requested SOCO and a pathologist. His tone of voice indicated some urgency. ‘Well, I’m here – though I see no sign yet of the scenes of crime officers…’ He glanced around.

  ‘They’ll be on their way,’ Jess said. ‘To be honest, Tom, I don’t know how urgent it is. All I know is, it looks a very suspicious set-up. There’s a dead man in there…’ She pointed towards the house. ‘And nobody knows who he is. The elderly owner of the house found him on returning from a trip into town. He says he’s never seen him before.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Tom asked, struggling into the suit. ‘The old bloke, I mean.’

  ‘He’s left with a relative who has taken him to stay with her.’ Jess hesitated. ‘They were in that blue Mazda that passed you in the lane.’

  Tom grunted. ‘The woman driver glared at me through the windscreen as if I was trying to push her into the ditch.’

  ‘It was a bit irregular, I know,’ Jess said awkwardly, ‘but I asked her (she’s a Mrs Harwell) if she’d take a look at the corpse.’

  Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘How many people have been trampling over this scene?’

  Jess pulled a wry expression. ‘Probably far too many. But I wanted to make sure the dead man really was a stranger to the house owner. I thought perhaps the relative might recognise him, even if Mr Bickerstaffe says he doesn’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘Mr Bickerstaffe being the owner?’ Tom asked and when she nodded, he added, ‘If he’s elderly he might be confused.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he’s confused, Tom,’ Jess assured him. ‘But Mrs Harwell said he might have decided to be contrary. She didn’t recognise the dead man either, though.’

  ‘OK,’ Tom said resignedly, ‘Point me in the direction of this mystery stiff.’

  As he spoke, an unmarked van came rattling along the lane and joined the now-sizeable queue of vehicles outside the gates.

  ‘Here are the forensic boys,’ said Tom, watching the occupants of the van come out and begin to unload their equipment. ‘I’d better go and say hello to them first.’

  For the moment, things were largely out of her hands. Jess went back to her car and got in. She sat watching the activity outside, until all the newly arrived experts had disappeared inside and then, a little hesitantly, rang her boss, Superintendent Ian Carter.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Carter’s voice asked in her ear.

  ‘Everyone is in there, sir.’ She paused. Morton had emerged from the shrubbery with one of the constables and they were coming her way. ‘That includes Tom Palmer. He might be able to confirm whether or not it’s as suspicious as it looks. But there are several odd things. Nothing indicates how the deceased got here. He’s carrying no identifying documents. Mr Bickerstaffe still insists he doesn’t know him and Mrs Harwell, his niece – or near relative, I can’t quite sort it out – has also confirmed the man is unknown. There are some other puzzles, too.’

  ‘Who exactly is Bickerstaffe?’ came Carter’s voice. ‘How reliable do you judge him?’

  ‘He’s very elderly recluse, sir. Certainly eccentric but he’s quite clear about what happened, as far as he’s concerned. His first name is Monty - I imagine that’s really Montague. He’s lived in this house, Balaclava House, all his life. There must have been money once, but I’d guess it’s all gone. The building outside and inside is in a terrible state.’

  ‘Definitely sounds a suspicious death. Keep me informed,’ said Ian Carter and rang off.

  Morton was bending down by the car and Jess let down the window. ‘Was that the super?’

  ‘It was, Phil, and he’s quite happy to treat this as suspicious.’

  Morton looked relieved.

  A crunch of footsteps on gravel heralded the return of Tom Palmer.

  ‘Well?’ Morton and Jess chimed together.

  Palmer scratched his mop of hair. ‘I can’t tell you more until I’ve got him on the slab. He hasn’t been dead long, a matter of hours. Don’t ask me to be more exact. Don’t ask me what killed him, either, but outer signs indicate a possible poisoning.’

  ‘Poisoning?’ Morton exclaimed.

  ‘I’ll let you know later.’ Tom looked uncertain. ‘There is something about him that struck me…’

  They waited eagerly to know what this might be. But Tom had changed his mind.

  ‘Let me get a proper look at him. No point in me letting my imagination take over.’

  They watched him go back to his car and begin to divest himself of his protective clothing.

  ‘What was all that about?’
asked Morton.

  But Jess could only shake her head. ‘No idea, just Tom being cautious, I suppose.’ But cautious about what, exactly? Rather crossly, Jess added, ‘What’s Tom noticed that I’ve missed?’

  Chapter 4

  ‘Well, Ian,’ said Monica Farrell, ‘here’s a turn-up for the books. None of us has seen anything of you for a very long time!’

  The words were reproachful, but they were uttered in a comfortable tone that took the sting out of them. To underline they were meant as a welcome, she patted his arm.

  ‘Come into the parlour, as the spider said to the fly. I’ve put out the sherry bottle ready.’

  There was nothing spidery about his ex-wife’s Aunt Monica, thought Superintendent Ian Carter ruefully, as he followed her into her cottage. She was built on solid, generous lines, broad in the beam, and dressed in a baggy skirt, old cardigan and sensible shoes. Her long grey hair was pinned on top of her head in a knot, insecurely held by a large tortoiseshell pin. To his eye, the pin looked Victorian.

  He quelled his feelings of guilt. Now that he had moved from the other end of the country to this new area to take up his present post some months ago, he had been within easy visiting distance of Aunt Monica. There was no excuse for not having called before at her home in Weston St Ambrose, except for a certain natural diffidence about visiting one’s former wife’s relations. He couldn’t be blamed for feeling that. Not that he and Sophie had broken up in a mass of recriminations, causing a division along family lines. Instead it had been a slow drift towards the inevitable. She had been unhappy and he had not known what to do about it. They’d bickered, rather than quarrelled. His job meant he often kept unsocial hours. Hers, for an international company, meant she travelled abroad a lot. In the end, they’d seemed to be always passing one another in the hall, one on the way out and the other on the way in. Then a new man had come into her life and Sophie had asked for a divorce. She’d taken their daughter Millie with her. He had raised a mild protest about that. But, as Sophie had pointed out in her usual way – reasonable with an underlying touch of exasperation – Millie was perhaps only ten at the time, but would soon be a teenager. Surely he didn’t see himself bringing up a teenage girl? He’d capitulated.