“Plenty. She was last seen with a man on the night of the nineteenth at an Indian Restaurant in Sutton Coldfield. Less than twenty-four hours later, she was dead. The man never came forward.”
“The man’s description?” Joe asked.
“Vague. Short stature, anywhere from late thirties to early fifties. Wasn’t a local to hear him speak. There endeth all descriptions, and it’s fair comment. Indian restaurant, late on Friday night, they would have been too busy to take much notice. It may not be connected.”
“I don’t like coincidences, Maddy, and this is too much of one. First this Annabelle woman is strangled and now Katya goes the same way. No, they’re connected. And no one got a better look at him than that?”
“If they did, they’re not coming forward,” Maddy replied. “According to the media grapevine, the police have a CCTV image, but it’s from some distance away, and you know how grainy they are to begin with. No doubt, Driscoll will have a copy of that before the day’s out, trying to make it match Rodney Asquith.”
Silence fell. For Joe it was a disappointed silence. Sir Douglas had asked him to uncover the author of poison pen letters and he had done so, only to uncover an even deeper web of deceit, for which he had no answer.
“That’s it, then. Nothing more to say. May as well get on with the packing,” he said.
“Have you considered the possibility that Driscoll is right? That it is Rodney?”
“What?” the question pulled Joe from his brooding. “Yeah. Sure. Course I have. But I like to have things neatly wrapped up, Maddy, and this is not neat. There are too many unanswered questions. I can’t work out how he did it.”
“I’m sure he’ll crack at some point and he’ll tell the police.” Maddy hesitated a moment and looked at both women before turning back to him. When she spoke, it was to change the subject. “Joe, I’m fifty soon.”
“Yeah. I know. You told me.”
“Right now, I have no one to help me celebrate. I wondered if you’d…” she trailed off.
He smiled. “Sure I will.”
Maddy beamed back. “Right, so that’s a room for two at the Hotel Don Quixote, Majorca. Where do you want to fly from? I like Manchester, but we could go from Leeds and Bradford.”
His two companions were delighted, but Joe’s colour drained.
“Hold on. When you said celebrate, I thought you meant a beer up in Scarborough. But Majorca? I’m not sure, Maddy. The café. I mean—”
Brenda laughed. “The café can manage perfectly well without you, Joe. The way it’s going, it can manage without all of us.”
“You see,” Maddy urged. “Come on, Joe. If you don’t it means I’ll be in Majorca all alone.”
“Joe, get yourself off to Majorca,” Sheila ordered. “We’ll hold the fort at this end.”
Joe hedged. “Yeah, but, I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
“Tell me what the problem is,” Maddy demanded.
Joe searched his mind. “Well, for a start off, you’re asking us to sign in for one room. The odd night, sure, but I don’t know if I could pass as your husband for a whole week.”
Brenda roared with laughter this time. “I don’t know whether Maddy could pass as someone daft enough to have you for a husband. Just go, and stop being so old-fashioned.”
He was about to reply, but her final words stopped him in his tracks. Images raced through his mind; mp3 player and dock, smartphone, CCTV system, PC after PC, laptop, satellite TV systems. And with each image, he thought of the words ‘old-fashioned’ and mentally struck them out. And then he came to it, sitting incongruously amongst the male cosmetics, the bottles of aftershave, cans of deodorant, its drawer open, signalling to him, shouting at him, ‘look at me, look at me, old-fashioned, old-fashioned’.
“So how about it, Joe?”
Maddy was pressing him for an answer. He nodded at her as he took out his phone and dialled Driscoll again. “Don’t be too hasty charging Rodney,” he said once he was through. “Instead, go through his personal effects and see if you can find a cassette tape. Check it for prints. If his are on it, then it’s him, if not it’s someone else, and I think I know who.”
“What the hell is this, Murray? Cassette tape?”
“It’ll be amongst his personal effects. I’m sure it will. It was planted there while he and I attended to the old man in the early hours of Saturday. Check it out. When you play it, you’ll find there’s the sound of a horn on it. Then, get together all the photographs your boys took of the old man’s room and get out here. Better bring some bodies with you. I’m gonna give you the real killer.” Joe terminated the call, dropped the phone in his pocket, and said to his friends, “You lot wait here. We don’t want too many people in the room.”
“Room?” Sheila asked. “What room.”
With a broad smile, Joe tapped the side of his nose, and hurried out. Making his way to the kitchen, he found Alistair grumbling to his wife that the rest of the family were still off work and he had to cater for, “the bunch of lazy boneheads.”
“Excuse me,” Joe apologised to Mrs Winters. “Alistair, could you come with me, please.”
“I’m busy. You want your luggage shifting, do it yerself.”
“I don’t want anything shifting, but I do need a witness, and as witnesses go, you’re the best. Come on.”
Followed by the perplexed butler, Joe led the way upstairs, and while he waited for Alistair to arrive, he entered his own room, dug into his packed suitcase, and brought out a pair of latex gloves.
After the previous day’s reconstructions, Driscoll had ordered Sir Douglas’s room sealed off again. Joe joined Alistair outside the door and ripped the tape away.
“Right, so I’m a witness,” Alistair said. “I definitely saw you break that police tape and interfere with a crime scene.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Joe said pushing the door open and leading the way in. “Driscoll will thank me for it in the end.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Blind, stupid optimism.”
Joe strode straight to the dresser, looked down amongst the bottles and canisters and smiled triumphantly.
“Alistair, after Sir Douglas you are the one man in this house who would recognise the items on this dresser.” Standing back, Joe gestured at the array of items. “Is there anything missing?”
The butler ran an experienced eye over the top, and spent some moments leaning this way and that so he could check the various bottles without touching them. “Everything has been shifted around, but I think there’s a bottle of scent missing. Don’t ask me which one. I’d have to check them all.”
“Fair enough,” Joe said. “Now look again and tell me is there’s anything which shouldn’t be there?”
“Aye. That bloody thing.” The butler pointed at the radio/cassette player Joe had first noticed in the early hours of Saturday morning. “I’ve ne’er seen it before.”
Keeping down his sense of triumph, Joe asked, “It’s not Sir Douglas’s?”
“Ach, away wi’ ye. D’you not know the old fool better yet? He thinks he’s a damned teenage whizz-kid with his mp3 players and his computers and his smartphone. He got rid of the last of his cassettes years ago, when he turned to CDs, and he got rid of those when that silly bloody thing came into the house.” Alistair waved at the blood-stained mp3 dock on the bedside cabinet.
Joe brought Alistair’s attention back to the cassette player. “Do you know who this belongs to?”
“No, I don’t, but if ye want me to guess, I’d say the local charity shop. Look at it, man. It’s a relic of the eighties, man. Aye, and a tiny one at that. It doesn’t even have the decency to be a ghettoblaster.”
“Size isn’t everything,” Joe said.
“Is that what you told your missus?”
“Bog off. This thing doesn’t need to be big.” Joe picked up the machine. About a foot long, the tiny speakers were sat at either end, and the cassette drawer in the middle was open. Tur
ning it over, he checked the faded label for specifications. “As far as I can see, these speakers pump out twenty four watts each.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means it could be heard all over the house.”
***
Joe met with Driscoll and Hollis in the hall just after one o’clock. A light lunch of cold cuts and salad had been served, and Joe had asked everyone to gather in the drawing room prior to the police arriving. He was pleased to note that Driscoll had two uniformed constables in tow.
Briefly he told them of his deductions, and concluded, “We have to tread carefully. What I have isn’t proof, only evidence, and he’s smart, this one.”
“But you’re sure it isn’t Asquith?”
Joe nodded. “He was the patsy. Did you find the cassette?”
Driscoll held it up in a sealed evidence bag. “No prints at all, but you were right about the content. About minute of silence, then a single, long blast on a horn. Thing is, Murray, it doesn’t sound a bit like the air horn.”
“It was three in the morning, we were all half asleep, we heard it through several walls. Would we know the difference?” Joe removed the cassette from the bag and dropped it in the player. “You wanna handle this?”
Driscoll shook his head. “If anyone’s going to make himself look a total prat, it’s you.” Now he nodded towards the drawing room. “Let’s do it.”
They moved into the drawing room. Hollis stationed the two constables, one at the door, the other at the open French window. The sergeant then stood off to one side, behind Jeffrey, while Driscoll remained in the background behind Joe.
The family, his two friends and Maddy sat facing him, spread out around the various pieces of furniture. Aside from his party, the whole Ballantyne family appeared irritated. To Joe’s right, stood Alistair, a tray of soft drinks and ice ready to serve.
“Well, sorry to have kept you all, ladies and gentlemen,” Joe began as he plugged in the cassette player, “but I had to wait for Inspector Driscoll to turn up.”
“Mind telling us why we’re here, Murray?” Jeffrey demanded. “I thought when the police arrested Asquith, the business had been dealt with, and I have other matters I’d like to get to.”
“The business isn’t sorted, Jeffrey. According to Inspector Driscoll, Asquith will be charged with fraud, deception, whatever the hell, but he didn’t attack your father-in-law, and he didn’t murder either of the two women.”
“Two women?” Hermione demanded.
“Yes, Mrs Claremont. Two women. Katya Nolan and a young woman named Annabelle Immerman, who was found dead in a layby near Sutton Coldfield in June.”
“And what does that have to do with us?” Serena snapped.
“Everything, Mrs Ballantyne. As you’ll see.” Joe addressed the room in general. “When I spoke to Verity, she insisted that evil had wormed its way into this house, and she was right. But it was here long before Rodney Asquith. And that evil came with one thought in mind. Getting its hands on a share of the Ballantyne millions. It was a long, painfully slow process, because it involved the old man dying, and he wasn’t up for it. So evil came up with an idea to help him shuffle off his mortal coil. In short, evil was going to kill Sir Douglas. But even that was risky. Many people consider the police to be fools, but they’re not, and it’s very difficult to kill someone and leave absolutely no trace of yourself. Evil needed a plan. Evil needed someone who could take the blame. Then to evil’s delight, he discovered that Sir Douglas wanted a family history producing, and as it happened, evil knew a young woman who was in that line of business: Katya Nolan. So evil got hold of one of her leaflets, and planted them on someone else, so they could suggest the girl to the old man. To evil’s further delight, the old man bought it and Katya arrived in February to begin her work.”
Joe paused to draw breath, and ran his eyes round the small audience. No one was giving anything away.
“Slowly. Over the coming weeks, evil persuaded Katya to join him in his hare-brained scheme. Her reward? A share of the millions when they came through. Katya was greedy. She wanted money. Lots of it, and if it involved bumping the old boy off, well, so what? He was getting on, he’d had a good long life. But Katya wasn’t happy about being so closely involved. She, too, needed someone she could pin it on. Then she stumbled on the affair between Sir Douglas and Frances Asquith. Researching the woman was meat and veg to Katya, and she found Rodney, and that gave her an idea, which she put to evil. Between them, they came up with a plan. They would persuade Rodney to pose as an illegitimate Ballantyne and announce himself to the old man. It was going to cost money to scam the old fella, but evil didn’t mind laying out a bit off cash. Considering the potential payoff, it was worth it.”
Joe paced the carpet across the front of his audience.
“The early bit was expensive, but simple. Pay a month’s rent on an empty office in Erdington, North Birmingham, shift in a bit of furniture, run up a few false qualifications and other bits and pieces to persuade your father that Annabelle Immerman was a real solicitor. The really big expense was a DNA analysis on Katya Nolan’s blood. They needed that so she could copy the format and wording when she falsified the report your father received. Again, evil didn’t mind forking out for it.”
“My father’s blood sample must have gone to that laboratory,” Verity objected.
“Indeed, it did. But he never got the result. According to Asquith, Katya intercepted that report when it turned up here. Katya and evil knew exactly what the envelope from Descant looked like because she’d received one with her analysis, so it was never a major problem to prepare a duplicate in advance and switch them the morning it arrived.”
“You keep calling him evil,” Toby complained. “Who is he?”
“All in good time, my friend. Evil has been very careful. Even Rodney didn’t know about evil. He worked exclusively with Katya.” Joe smiled on them. “Getting back to our little tale, Sir Douglas fell for all this hook, line and sinker, and although he said to me he insisted on Katya following Rodney to Birmingham, I’m willing to bet evil actually suggested it to him. She never did go to Birmingham. Instead she went to the Maitland Hotel in Manchester, where she met with evil, and after a spot of horizontal exercise, they planned the next stage of the operation. This was the complicated bit. First they produced the notes threatening the old man. Katya made them up and left them in the hall. She was so dumb that girl, she didn’t even know what they were for. She’d been told that they were there to make Rodney toe the line when they wanted a cut of the family millions. In fact, they were there to throw suspicion on Rodney.”
“How?” Quentin asked.
“When her body was found and we realised she had prepared the notes, we would assume that she had left them in the hope of protecting herself from Rodney. It was logical, but wrong. But, of course, at the time she prepared them, she didn’t realise she was to die. She didn’t even know that her friend in the Midlands, Annabelle Immerman had been killed.”
Joe stopped pacing and faced them all.
“So we come to Friday night. Katya had pressured Rodney into providing pills that matched those of Hermione’s. Katya cries off ill, and goes into the study to stop the CCTV, but not before she’s managed to sneak one of each of the pills into Sir Douglas’s drinks. Then, later, when everyone is in bed, she shoots off up to the moors, followed by evil. They torch her car, he brings her back and they go to their favourite spot in the woods for a bit of fun and frolics, only this time she gets more than she bargained for when evil strangles her and leaves her body in a shallow grave which, on reflection, was easy to find. Evil then comes back to the house, takes the knife from the kitchen, and enters the old man’s bedroom. Sir Douglas is asleep, knocked out by the pills. Evil stabs him in the shoulder. It’s quite deliberate. He’s confident the old fool will bleed to death. He then carefully places the air horn on the floor by the far side of the bed. The impression we get is that Sir Douglas struggled,
grabbed the air horn and the attacker knocked it from his hand before making his escape through the open bedroom window. The truth is, that air horn was never used.”
“We all heard it, Murray,” Jeffrey protested. “You did, too.”
“No. What we heard was this.”
Joe turned and pressed the play button on the machine. Silence reigned for almost sixty seconds, and then came the deafening howl of a horn.
People cringed, covered their ears, protested over the noise, and Joe stopped it.
“One minute of silence prior to the horn. And that was what we all heard. In that one minute, evil was back in his own room, tucked up in bed, pretending to sleep. When the siren sounded, he rushed out with the rest of us to see what the fuss was about.”
Joe nodded to Driscoll who unplugged the machine and removed the cassette before he began bagging up both.
“So you all want to know who evil is. He made mistakes. They always do, and those mistakes are what pointed us to him. He was a womaniser, a man absolutely sure of himself, a man in total control of the situation. A man who was a real hit with the ladies but one who’s not up to much at anything else.” Joe spun through ninety degrees. “Isn’t that right, Quentin?”
Chapter Seventeen
Under Joe’s accusing stare, Quentin laughed. “I’m sorry. Me? A womaniser? I think you’re talking about Jeffrey.”
“No, no. It’s you. The landlord of the local pub told me about Jeffrey. He’s just a light-fingered sad sack who believes he’s irresistible to women, when the truth is most women find him slightly ridiculous. He has less chance of pulling than me.” Joe smiled. “But you… All those invitation tournaments you play in, all those women you teach. Wife at home, praying to her god, and you showing those good-looking fillies how to improve their swing.”
Quentin looked beyond Joe. “Chief Inspector, this man is talking nonsense.”
“It’s Inspector, not Chief Inspector, Mr Olsen, and we’ll wait until we hear what Mr Murray has to say before reaching a judgement.”
A Killing in the Family Page 19