by Evelyn James
“Be assured, now the right men are here, this case will be solved in no time,” the chief constable told the mayor, shaking his hand.
“About time you called in Scotland Yard,” the mayor snuffled, he was the sort of fellow who suffers chronically from his sinuses. “I can’t have Hove tarnished by this.”
He produced a large handkerchief from his pocket and blew into it in a robust, but unproductive fashion. Then he and the chief constable were leaving and heading to their respective cars.
“Bloomin’ cheek,” the desk sergeant snorted.
“I completely agree,” Clara assured him. “I just hope the little snippet of information I have for the inspector cheers him up.”
“You can go up to his office, if you like.”
“Brave the lion in his den, you mean?”
The desk sergeant grimaced.
“Don’t worry,” Clara smiled at him. “I am used to him by now.”
She headed upstairs and stood before the inspector’s office door. Bracing herself, she knocked. Several moments passed before a gruff voice shouted out.
“What is it?”
Clara opened the door and greeted the inspector with a smile.
“I witnessed your visitors leaving,” she told him before he could send her packing. “I appreciate you are feeling rather scorned right now, and I can see why. Quite frankly, it is a disgrace.”
Her opening tactic of sympathy to the inspector was perfectly timed and instead of telling her to leave him alone, the inspector sank back in his chair with a sigh.
“What could I expect? A bloody murder with no speedy arrest and Hove’s mayor fretting the town won’t get tourists in the spring season because of it, unless we solve it right now. Him and the Chief Constable are thick as thieves.”
“I gathered that,” Clara said. “Look, those London detectives have no greater insight, no better minds than you and your men. It just happens they work at Scotland Yard in a city which sees a lot of brutal crimes. In that sense they have more experience on the matter but what they don’t have is local knowledge and insight into the way country folk behave. That is their disadvantage and your advantage.”
“Clara, I am no longer in charge of this case,” Park-Coombs told her miserably. “Those two Londoners have taken over. They’ll tell me what they want me to do and I shall bite my tongue and do it, but I am not able to investigate on my own anymore.”
Clara hesitated. She had not realised Park-Coombs would be so restricted in what he could do. She took a chair before his desk, feeling a little sombre now.
“Does that mean the new information I have should go straight to those Londoners? Because, quite frankly, I am not inclined to speak to them,” she said with a twinkle of defiance in her eye.
A faint hint of a smile crossed the inspector’s lips.
“What do you have?”
“There is a vet in Hangleton. He was cycling past Spinner’s Farm between eleven and twelve on the day of the murder. He saw Mr Beech in the field. He also saw a woman with him, but he did not recognise her as she had her back to him. When he rode past again, roughly just after one o’clock, there was no sign of Mr Beech.”
“And he didn’t think this was important to tell the police?” Park-Coombs groaned. “What am I saying? I’ve known people to witness a murder in the past and not think it important to tell the police what they saw!”
“There is another thing,” Clara quickly said. “Earlier that day, about half nine, Mr Beech came to the vet surgery with some abandoned kittens he had found. That explains why Spinner never saw him when he walked past where he was working. Mr Beech was simply not there.”
The inspector let out another groan.
“You are making a case for Spinner’s innocence!”
Clara raised her hands helplessly.
“I can only tell you the information I have found. What about his clothes you took for testing?”
“There is blood on them,” the inspector said darkly. “But someone has thoroughly washed them, and Dr Deáth cannot say if the blood is animal or human. The clothes of a farmer like Spinner would be expected to have bloodstains on them from his day-to-day activities. It doesn’t prove a thing.”
That was disappointing.
“Who was the woman speaking to Mr Beech,” the inspector mused.
“Is it too obvious to suppose it was his daughter?” Clara suggested. She was not convinced Hanna was in that field and had later lied about it, but she was the obvious candidate.
“We investigated Hanna from the start. Her employer assured us she was working all day.”
“Did she not have a break?”
“Half an hour at dinnertime. Not long enough to walk from the shop to the field and be back before she was missed. I had a constable time the journey just in case. Even on a bicycle, he couldn’t manage to ride there and back within the half hour. And then we have to take into account the time for the pair to argue and the killing to occur.”
“Not to mention Hanna would have been splattered with blood and would have had to change her clothes before returning to work,” Clara said thoughtfully. “No, you are right, she can’t have done it.”
That left that obvious question which was bothering Clara a lot. If not Hanna, who was in that field with Mr Beech?
“For a man with limited social contacts, it is proving surprisingly difficult to pin down a person who would wish Mr Beech ill,” the inspector rubbed his chin.
“Did you have any luck with Spinner’s finances?”
The inspector shook his head.
“If he was taking money from Beech, he was not depositing it in his own bank. Of course, he could have been handing the cash over to people and that doesn’t leave a trace.”
“It is all rather perplexing,” Clara frowned. “And Mr Spinner’s alibi is beginning to look more promising. He was not lying, after all, when he said he never saw Mr Beech that day. The first time he walked past the field where he was working, Mr Beech was busy at the vets, and when he came back there is a fair chance Beech was already dead and lying on the ground. Hidden from view.”
“You are not improving my mood, Clara, Spinner is my only suspect right now.”
“Trouble is, that doesn’t make him the correct suspect,” Clara shrugged at him. “And he doesn’t have a motive.”
“It was about money. Of that I am sure. Someone was taking money from Beech and I am convinced it was Spinner,” Park-Coombs waggled his moustache, a sure sign he was beginning to regain his enthusiasm for solving this puzzle. “Let’s think about this sensibly. There can’t have been many women in the area where Beech was working that day, it is a remote field after all, so who would have been around to talk to him?”
Clara’s eyes wandered to the ceiling as she thought about this.
“There is Ellen at Three Pigs Farm, but that particular day was when she called Annie and asked her to come over as her husband was sick with influenza and she had three young children in the house. I can’t see her wandering across the fields.”
Inspector Park-Coombs agreed with this.
“Who else?”
They thought silently for a long while.
“Mrs Spinner, of course,” Clara said.
Their eyes met.
“Mrs Spinner,” Park-Coombs repeated the name to himself. “Funny how you overlook things. That woman does not have an alibi for the entire timeframe of the murder. She was alone in the house after her husband left and until he returned.”
“Could she have violently murdered an old man?” Clara said.
“You would be amazed at what seemingly weak and harmless people can do,” Park-Coombs replied.
“We are still lacking a motive,” Clara reminded him.
“I know,” Park-Coombs huffed. “It suddenly seemed so plausible!”
“What if,” Clara said carefully, “it was not Mr Spinner who was taking money from Mr Beech?”
“It was his wife, you mean?” Park-C
oombs mulled over this notion. His eyes lit up. “What if it was?”
“Well, it is better than this witchcraft nonsense that is doing the rounds,” Clara remarked. “I don’t know if you have heard, but a black dog was left outside Spinner’s house. Shook him up badly. The animal was dead, of course. Turns out it belonged to the local squire and had gone missing.”
“That’s rather grim,” Park-Coombs frowned. “A warning or an attempt to scare Spinner?”
“That isn’t the least of it. Apparently, back in the last century, Mr Beech’s great aunt was murdered by a man who thought she was a witch. He impaled her with a pitchfork.”
The inspector gave a cry of anguish at this news and clasped his face in his hand.
“Don’t tell me, that story is doing the rounds of Hangleton?”
“Well, if you don’t want me to say…”
“That is one thing I won’t miss about this case. Let the Londoners deal with people who are convinced Beech was murdered by a ghost, or a witch, or maybe because he was a witch. I am sick of it. My instincts say this was an impulsive, savage crime. Someone lashed out at the old man.”
“This mystery woman,” Clara agreed.
“If nothing else, she will need to do some smart talking to explain why she has failed to come forward.”
“It is highly suspicious, isn’t it?”
Park-Coombs mulled over the information a while longer, then he looked at Clara with a sad face.
“I can’t investigate this Clara. I am duty-bound to report what you just told me to Scotland Yard’s men and let them deal with it. I can tell you now, I really don’t want to do that.”
“No reason to give them a leg up just yet,” Clara grinned at him. “Let me nose around a bit longer, give them a chance to flounder about in this case and discover that every witness thinks this was the work of demons or hell hounds.”
“It is a little unethical,” Park-Coombs muttered, though he was not uninclined towards Clara’s suggestion.
“Pretend I said nothing at all. After all, I bet those boys from Scotland Yard won’t give a private detective like me the time of day. Therefore, how can I pass on this important information to them?”
“Dare I be that underhand?” Park-Coombs asked himself, worried.
“For the greater good, Inspector, and by that I mean ensuring you are the one to solve this mystery, not the Yard.”
“The longer I spend with you, Clara, the more I begin to worry about my moral compass being knocked out of alignment.”
“It’s not every day I get told I am a bad influence,” Clara laughed.
“You are certainly that,” Park-Coombs sighed. “So why is it I just know I am going to let you do as you please.”
“Because you trust me, Inspector,” Clara’s grin was as broad as the famed Cheshire Cat’s.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was just enough time left in the day to pay a visit to the Hangleton garage. Tommy hurried into what appeared to be an office. He was acutely aware that with evening drawing on and the clock fast approaching five, his sudden visit with a lengthy enquiry about car ownership was unlikely to be popular.
He found a man in a long brown work coat, the sort that foremen wear and which is often stained with oil, grease, and other industrial substances, stood behind a wooden counter that divided the room in half. Worryingly, he was in the process of putting away his ledgers and papers for the day. There was a bell on the counter and as he had his back to Tommy and did not turn at the sound of the door, Tommy flicked it to make a dull ring. On reflection, it was probably the wrong thing to do. It sounded demanding, obnoxious, a little rude. The man, after all, was just there.
The fellow turned with a stern look. They were not off to a good start. He was a middle-aged man, largely bald with a wispy moustache that did nothing for him. He was a touch stout and when he moved towards the counter, it turned out he had been standing on a step to replace his ledgers and was actually shorter than Tommy by a few inches. This appeared to make him even more annoyed with his customer.
“We are about to shut. Unless it is an emergency, I am afraid we cannot help you,” he said curtly, though still with a façade of politeness.
“I apologise for disturbing you,” Tommy decided to begin with conciliation. “I caught the bell with my arm, never meant to do that. Sounded rude, didn’t it?”
He fudged through the lie. Why was it when Clara told a fib she always sounded so assured and confident about it. No matter how absurd the tale was, she made it sound plausible. In contrast, he sounded like the schoolboy holding a cricket bat and denying the cricket ball that had smashed a hole in the school greenhouse had anything to do with him.
“We close at five, it is now ten to,” the garage man said, unmoved by Tommy’s excuses.
“Right, I’ll be brief, then,” Tommy cleared his throat and tried to appear authoritative, that seemed to work for Clara. “This is what has happened. My dog was hit by a car and killed. The damn car owner never stopped. He nearly took me out at the same time. I want to track him down so I can report him to the police for dangerous driving.”
“We don’t repair dogs,” the garage man said drily.
Tommy could see he was going to be a hard nut to crack.
“I was hoping to get a list of local car owners from you? You see, I am sure it was a local person and if I saw the car again, I would know it at once. Especially as there must have been some damage done. You are the only garage in Hangleton, so logically you must know everyone around here who has a car. Sooner or later they must come through your doors.”
“And you want me to just give you the names of my customers?” The garage owner did not look impressed.
“This is serious,” Tommy pressed on relentlessly. “My dog is dead. I was nearly killed and all because this fellow was not driving responsibly. Could be next time he hits a child and kills them.”
There was still no flicker of empathy from the garage owner. Tommy tried a different approach.
“What if he were to hit a cow or sheep from the farms as they were being moved across the roads? That would be terrible.”
Where talk of dead dogs and children had not affected the man, talk of dead farm animals struck a chord. His eyes widened a little, Tommy saw him considering and hoped heartily that the man was from farming stock.
“That would be serious,” the garage man said at last. “Some of the bullocks around here cost a small fortune.”
“The driver was speeding past Spinner’s Farm,” Tommy added, though he was not certain of the location of the accident. “Right near that field with the bullocks.”
“Spinner would be furious if one of his cattle was hit by a car,” the garage man whistled softly at the thought. “What with his father being the local MP, he could make an awful lot of fuss over the matter. It would be terrible if he was able to push through restrictions on where cars can drive around Hangleton. That has already been proposed twice, you know, by some of the older residents who hate cars. For some of the local car owners, that would be dreadful, it would restrict them from going where they wanted.”
Tommy was only half listening, because something the man had said earlier had already caught his attention and distracted him.
“Did you say the senior Mr Spinner is the local MP?”
“I did,” the garage man nodded. “He has been elected successively the last eight years. Not everyone cares for him, mind, but he has enough voters to keep him in his seat.”
This was information that no one else had offered. Tommy was not sure if it was relevant, though it potentially gave Mr Spinner senior a strong motive for seeing his son’s name cleared to avoid scandal. That being said, Mr Spinner did not appear to be doing much to assist his son, at least nothing obvious. He squirrelled the information away and focused on the task at hand.
“You see my dilemma, then? I want to find this driver before he can cause more havoc, but I don’t know who it was.”
“You say you would recognise the car?” The garage man asked.
Tommy lied smoothly.
“Yes.”
“And you won’t cause trouble for anyone else, just the fellow who is responsible?”
“Why would I cause trouble for anyone apart from him? I have no desire to be a nuisance, I just want this fellow taken to task for driving dangerously.”
The garage man pressed a finger to his lip and was obviously contemplating what he had just been asked. The fingers of his free hand rapped on the counter in a perfect rhythm.
“I am concerned about some of the reckless drivers around here,” he said. “They are giving decent motorists a bad name and giving fuel to the car-haters. I say to myself, they will have cars banned from Hangleton if they carry on this way.”
“That is certainly a possibility,” Tommy helpfully added to his concerns.
“There is this village in Wales where that has happened. I read about it in the Hobby Motorist Magazine. People are up in arms, well, the car owners, anyway. Trouble is, they are outnumbered by those who don’t own a car. The car-haters say there have been too many accidents involving cars and pedestrians or horses, and insist the roads aren’t safe with cars upon them. It’s terrible.”
“We would not want to see that around here,” Tommy agreed with him.
“I’ve said it countless times, the car is the future, for all of us. We have got to learn to live with it. But I fear some folk will never accept it. If there was such a ban in Hangleton, it would be to the detriment of us all. It would stop the march of progress.”
The little garage man had worked himself up into quite a dither about all this and was even shaking his fist as he spoke. Tommy had plainly hit a nerve. This was something the car man worried about, worried how it would affect his business and how it would affect the future of car ownership. Tommy gave him a moment to let all these thoughts sink in.
“Such a shame that a handful of irresponsible individuals spoil things for everyone,” he said, carefully fuelling the fire.