‘Everyone seems to be connected in Llanberis,’ Drake replied without answering the question directly.
Drake wandered around the garden for a few minutes, casting the occasional glance towards the house, its sombre stone exterior hiding the high-tech activity inside. By the back door, he noticed a plastic bag, the sort that supermarkets were trying to phase out. It caught his attention and he turned to Sara. ‘Something by the back door.’
By the rear door a flat piece of slate wedged the bag securely, suggesting its contents had value. Drake knelt down, reached for another pair of gloves from his pocket and removed the slate to one side before opening the bag. Inside, wrapped in another bag, were two fresh salmon.
Drake got to his feet and turned to Sara. ‘There are two salmon here.’
Sara looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean? Why would she leave them outside?’
‘I don’t think Heulwen Beard left them outside. Probably one of her neighbours. We’ll get the house-to-house team to ask around.’
Drake read the time on his watch; they had hours of work ahead of them.
‘Let’s get started.’
Chapter 20
Drake woke from a dreamless sleep. Then he remembered watching a documentary about mediaeval France the evening before that had a soporific effect.
A text message from Annie reached his mobile.
It told him how much she looked forward to seeing him that evening. A yearning blossomed as he thought about what she was doing that morning. Was she curled up in bed texting him? What was she wearing? For a moment he allowed his mind to wander, his emotions to develop, his desire to feel the warmth of a woman’s body next to his once again. He cursed himself when he realised that keeping his date would be practically impossible.
He tapped out a reply to Annie but the words appeared unforgiving.
He would call her later. Speaking to her was so much better than an anonymous text. But he might forget, so he tapped out another message but deleted that too in a burst of annoyance. He glanced at his watch. Unless he left he was going to be late for the post-mortem so he fiddled with the phone, setting himself a reminder to contact her.
Three hours later Drake sat in his car outside the mortuary.
No matter how many post-mortems he attended there was a lingering smell that stuck to his clothes, invaded his nostrils. He supposed it was a mixture of decay and blood and the sterile conditions. It still amazed him that pathologists could develop a robust, detached attitude to their work. Most thrived with a saw or a drill in their hand.
The locum pathologist had a strong Irish accent and Drake struggled to understand him as he explained that the first blow to her head had knocked her unconscious. ‘She has a large depressed skull fracture to her occiput, consistent with blunt force trauma, possibly being struck from behind with a heavy object. I’ve opened what’s left of her skull for you, Ian.’
He had pointed at a mass of grey tissue and congealed blood. The back of the head looked like a broken eggshell.
‘The blow caused catastrophic damage to her brain; this would have knocked her unconscious immediately and despatched her fairly swiftly after. She then struck the finial on her way down, causing this nasty gash to the side of her head, severing the temporal artery. This would have caused some impressive bleeding, accounting for the pool of blood at the scene. But it was the initial blow which killed her.’
The pathologist had studied the image of the bust found at the crime scene intently before confirming that he thought her injuries compatible with a blow from it.
It all suggested an angry assault from someone with a violent temper.
Someone like Fiona Jones, Drake concluded.
Drake glanced out of the windscreen and an ambulance sped towards the entrance of the accident and emergency department immediately followed by a police car, its lights flashing. He found his mobile and called Sara.
‘Morning, boss,’ Sara said. ‘How did you get on with the post-mortem?’
‘Severe blunt force trauma to the skull. She didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Confirms what we suspected.’
‘The pathologist confirmed the bust at the scene was responsible for the injury.’
‘She probably knew her attacker.’
Everything suggested that Heulwen had invited her assailant into the house. Somebody with a short fuse.
Drake watched as paramedics supervised by two uniformed officers pulled a patient from the ambulance and wheeled him inside. Another eventful morning for the medics. He rang off after arranging to meet Sara at the offices of Heulwen Beard.
* * *
The legal firm of Beard and Beard occupied an imposing building on a quiet street in Bangor. Drake hammered on the front door, but it remained firmly closed. Sara stood behind him peering up at the first floor. Seconds later the door creaked open and a woman with dank, lifeless hair and bags under her eyes appeared.
‘Julie Hall?’ Drake said, holding out his warrant card.
The woman nodded lifelessly. ‘Detective Inspector Drake. We spoke briefly last night. I need to go through Heulwen Beard’s paperwork.’
Hall’s chin wobbled when Drake mentioned her late employer’s name.
‘May we come in?’
Hall opened the door and Drake and Sara followed her into the hallway that led into an equally depressing reception room.
Hall appeared lost; she stood staring at the desk where Drake presumed she worked. A monitor was propped up by old magazines, the computer out of sight. Behind her was a corkboard, a mass of printed sheets, including a schedule of postage costs and notices from local authorities. A threadbare mat sat in the middle of the floor. An ancient gas fire flickered silently as it warmed the room.
‘We’ll need to see Miss Beard’s office,’ Drake said.
Hall gave him a puzzled look. ‘Of course. I’ll show you.’
Beard’s office was a mirror version of the study at her home. The walls hadn’t seen a coat of paint for years. Pictures hung crookedly exposing the unfaded wallpaper behind them.
‘Does Miss Beard have a diary?’ Drake sat down on an old leather chair behind a desk strewn untidily with files and folders. He didn’t know where to start – the whole place was disorganised and he couldn’t imagine anyone working in the circumstances, let alone a lawyer who needed to be orderly.
Sara flicked through a shelving unit stacked with paperbacks and DVDs.
Drake continued. ‘What sort of work did Miss Beard do?’
When Drake heard a sniffling sound, he raised his gaze and saw Hall dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘It was mostly conveyancing or dealing with probate work or writing wills for people.’
Sara turned to Julie, dusting off her hands. ‘Miss Beard worked for a Wolfgang Muller when he sued Harry Jones.’
Julie shook her head. ‘I think she regretted ever agreeing to do that case.’
‘We’ll need the file.’
Julie scurried off and Drake sat at Heulwen’s desk and pulled out a narrow drawer on the left-hand side with ballpoints and pencils scattered inside. Using an old ruler he prodded around among the stationery as Sara dragged open drawers from filing cabinets lined against one wall. ‘These are all filed in alphabetical order.’
Drake reached the second drawer, full of old diaries.
The final drawer on the left-hand side of the desk had a pot of moisturiser and a box of tissues. He turned his attention to the drawers on the right-hand side.
‘Anything of interest?’ Drake said, working his way through some back issues of Papur Padarn. He recognised the articles written by Glyn Talbot and then Heulwen’s name as the editor. When he visited his mother he’d occasionally scan the papur bro, which reported the local gossip; he recalled fondly how his grandparents would dote when his photograph from a school activity appeared in the paper.
Sara had stopped at the third drawer of the first cabinet. ‘I don’t think she stores any files. Some of these are ye
ars old. They all deal with people buying or selling property or making wills.’
Drake finished Heulwen’s desk and debated whether it was worthwhile turning his attention to a glass-fronted cupboard lined with legal textbooks as Julie returned to the office carrying an armful of files. She dumped them on the desk.
‘Here are the files you wanted.’
Drake opened the first, fingering the pile of paperwork. ‘Do you know anything about this case?’
‘Muller sued Harry Jones over some money they’d both invested. He thought Harry had defrauded him.’
‘We’ll need to take the papers with us.’
Hall shrugged.
‘Do you know if she had any enemies or anyone that might have a motive to kill her?’ Drake said.
Hall’s chin and lips quivered in tandem. She gasped for breath. Getting useful information from the secretary was going to be difficult if she carried on with this melodramatic reaction.
‘I don’t know anyone who would want to kill her,’ Julie sobbed.
Even the simple questions about how long she had been working for Heulwen Beard were met with obfuscation. He checked his watch, amazed at the time he had spent at the offices already. Judging by the grumbling sounds coming from his stomach it was nearly lunchtime. Drake lost his patience, and found himself raising his voice, sounding irritable even to himself. Eventually he coaxed out of Hall that she had worked for Beard and Beard for fifteen years. Hall admitted she liked Heulwen Beard’s father much better than her.
Drake glanced over at Sara who was still working her way through the filing cabinets.
‘Do you have a list of your clients?’ Drake said.
‘It’s in a book in reception.’
‘A book?’
‘Miss Beard didn’t trust computers.’
Drake heard Sara struggle with one of the drawers.
‘I don’t believe it.’ Sara raised her voice, and turned to Drake. ‘Boss, something you should see.’
By the time Drake reached Sara she had pulled out a file onto the top of the drawer. Stencilled in clear letters was the name Richard Perdue.
Chapter 21
After texting Annie to apologise that he couldn’t keep their date that evening Drake spent the first few hours of the afternoon reading the Muller papers. Sara had the Perdue file while the rest of the team were coordinating the immediate work needed following the discovery of Heulwen Beard’s body.
Drake found a twenty-page document signed by Wolfgang Muller with a large scrawl that stretched over most of the final page. Legal jargon and complex phraseology made the court documents heavy going so reading Muller’s statement was straightforward.
Harry Jones had persuaded Muller to invest £30,000 in a company that owned a high-tech piece of equipment used in the car industry to prevent thefts of vehicles. Muller alleged Harry Jones had personally guaranteed he wouldn’t lose his money. When the business went bust all the investors lost out, including Muller and Jones. It wasn’t clear from the paperwork how much Harry Jones had invested but if it was the same as Muller, Drake guessed Harry wouldn’t be troubled by losing £30,000. From the tone of Muller’s statement, he wanted his money back, really badly.
At the end of the afternoon Drake spent an hour with Philip Hughes, a lawyer from the legal department. Hughes complained like hell that Drake’s insistence he attend at headquarters to read the papers ruined his participation in a golf tournament.
‘This looks like the classic case of one person’s word against another,’ Hughes said. ‘Muller betted the judge would believe him and not Harry Jones. There is nothing in writing. The claim relies on the judge deciding which of them is telling the truth.’
‘So, Wolfgang Muller is left out of pocket to the sum of £30,000. And presumably he has a lot of costs to pay. It must have made him incandescent when his wife started an affair with Jones.’
Hughes was on his feet. ‘Both those things together would give Wolfgang Muller a motive to kill Harry Jones.’
Before they could justify an interview with Wolfgang Muller the team would need to dig into the financial background of Mr and Mrs Muller.
Hughes turned to Drake by the doorway. ‘Unless Wolfgang Muller was really pissed off with Beard for cocking up the case, you don’t have a motive for him to be her killer.’
‘There’s nothing to suggest both deaths are linked at the moment.’
Hughes gave Drake a doubtful eye-roll.
* * *
Sara struggled to block out the activity in the Incident Room. Winder’s voice grated as he spent all his time on the telephone or so it seemed. Even Luned’s presence irritated Sara although she was guilty only of incessantly clicking on her mouse.
Sara removed the contents from one of Richard Perdue’s files they had taken from Beard’s office. She placed the various sections on the desk. There was a bundle of correspondence, some legal-looking documents and a sheaf of papers produced by one of the local councils.
Richard Perdue bought land speculatively with a view to gaining planning consent and then selling at a profit. But things hadn’t gone according to plan. Objections were raised by the local authority about the density of the proposed development and the means of access to the main road, and they suggested his plans were generally out of character with the entire locality.
Scanning various experts’ and architects’ reports, Sara realised Perdue had invested a lot of time and money in the proposal. She counted over a dozen letters of objection, in Welsh, some stretching to two pages, so she read the translated versions. Nobody in the local community supported Perdue’s plans.
After two hours Sara’s concentration drifted so she organised coffee. Deciding Hall might know more of the background, she called the secretary.
‘I wanted to ask you about Perdue’s planning application.’
Hall sounded tentative. ‘Miss Beard warned him not to buy the land on spec but he was determined to go ahead. She got involved because he thought a local professional might assist. Everybody else involved came from London.’
‘And that didn’t help?’
‘It probably alienated a lot of the locals. It’s what happened afterwards that caused the problem.’
‘And what was that?’
‘It’s in the file. You can judge for yourself.’
Intrigued, Sara found the correspondence easily enough. She started with the record of the conversations between Beard and Perdue. After selling the land at a substantial loss to a farmer Perdue was out for blood once he discovered Harry Jones had submitted a planning application that included Perdue’s land with adjacent land Harry owned.
Perdue wanted to sue the local authority, take out an injunction against Harry Jones doing anything further with the land, make a complaint to the local government ombudsman, find someone to blame. The tone of his correspondence and emails to Heulwen Beard had a nasty, aggressive streak. Sara rang Hall back.
‘Perdue wasn’t happy,’ Sara said.
‘Every time he came in here he got nastier. It upset Miss Beard; after all she had done for him in the past.’
‘What happened to the land in the end?’
‘When Richard Perdue found out that Harry Jones made a profit of almost a quarter of million pounds he came in here in an uncontrollable rage. He said he was going to expose everyone in the community and that we were all small-minded sheep-shaggers. I told Miss Beard to call the police.’
‘Did she?’
‘No.’
‘Is there anything else?’
Hall paused. ‘I didn’t pay it much attention at the time, but I heard him shouting at Miss Beard during their last meeting. Telling her he was going to get people from London to sort everyone out.’
Sara recalled Perdue’s face and chilled – was it more than an empty threat?
* * *
Drake stood by the Incident Room board suppressing a yawn. Three sets of tired eyes looked back at him. Empty mugs and plates littered the desk.
They had a full day of work ahead of them tomorrow even though it was a Sunday.
The image of Heulwen Beard had been pinned to the board alongside Harry Jones. Underneath were photographs of Fiona Jones, Wolfgang Muller and Richard Perdue. Nancy Brown occupied a less prominent position.
‘Harry Jones.’ Drake turned to tap a ballpoint on the photograph before scanning the other faces. ‘One of these people has a motive to want him dead. Wolfgang Muller hates him for sleeping with his wife and for defrauding him of £30,000.’
‘Allegedly.’ Winder pushed back in his chair.
‘But it gives him a motive. And he finds out Harry Jones has been seeing his wife despite Muller warning him off and he snaps…’
Sara added. ‘But does that give him a motive to kill Heulwen Beard? We don’t have any evidence Muller has a temper. Although Fiona does.’
Drake nodded. ‘Muller instructed Heulwen to sue Harry and he loses. He blames Heulwen for the case collapsing and landing him with a massive bill for costs. The red mist descends on him…’ Drake clicked his middle finger and thumb together.
‘We don’t have any evidence Muller was near Beard’s place,’ Sara said.
Drake turned his back to the board. ‘We need to triangulate his mobile telephone for the day to see if he was near Heulwen Beard’s home.’ Drake peered at Winder. ‘Have you traced the minibus from the outward bound centre Talbot referred to?’
‘Not yet, boss. I telephoned three and I’ve got at least another twelve to contact. And that’s only the ones based in Snowdonia. If it travelled here from outside the area we might never identify it.’
Drake ignored the despondency in Winder’s voice.
‘And we need to know more about Glyn Talbot, who found the body.’ A fragment of recollection reminded Drake he had overlooked something from the day before – he had read the name Talbot just before Foulds had interrupted him. ‘Harry left a legacy to a Matthew Talbot. We need—’
‘That must be his nephew,’ Luned spluttered. Three pairs of eyes gazed over at her. Luned trawled her memory. ‘When I spoke to Fiona’s mother she said that her daughter Jean had been married to a Glyn but she never mentioned a surname and she implied he was difficult to live with. Jean committed suicide and when she was talking about it, it was the only time Fiona’s mother showed any emotion. There was a photograph of her grandson Matthew on a cupboard.’
A Time to Kill Page 15