‘Keith?’ she said, glancing at Patrick’s warrant card. ‘He was a just a bloke I chatted to in the pub.’
‘May we come in?’ Patrick asked.
The girl shrugged. ‘S’pose.’
Tina led the way into the living room and turned off the TV. She was thin, anorexic-looking even, and unless I have lost my skill in evaluating people’s state of mind, very unhappy.
‘You’re the vicar’s son, aren’t you?’ she said when everyone had sat down.
‘That’s right,’ Patrick answered, not about to explain the difference between vicars and rectors.
‘I thought you were. You look like him. He came round when Dad died. I was surprised really as we never go to church. What do you want to know about Keith?’
‘Anything you can tell us that might lead to his killer.’
Tina was sitting bolt upright on the edge of her chair. ‘Look, I only sat and talked with him in the pub a couple of times. We never actually went out together. I wouldn’t have done. He wasn’t very nice really. I suppose I felt sorry for him.’
‘Did you actually meet him in the pub?’
‘No, outside when I was walking past to go to the postbox. I wouldn’t have the nerve to go in the pub on my own anyway.’
‘Not many people your age in the village?’ I queried.
‘No, and the ones that do don’t speak to me.’
‘Why did you feel sorry for Keith Davies?’ I went on to ask.
‘All three were like fish out of water. They—’
‘You met all three?’ Patrick interrupted.
‘Just the other two once. We talked for a little while – the couple were quite pleasant really – and then they moved to another table as they were having a meal.’
‘Do you mind telling me what you talked about?’
‘Just ordinary things. The weather, how quiet the village was in the winter – things like that.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last month. Keith really started to chat me up after that but I backed off. Although he could be quite fun to talk to he was rough – started rows with people when he’d had a couple of pints. I had an idea he’d been in trouble with the law.’
‘Some girls might find that glamorous in a dangerous sort of way,’ Patrick commented with a disarming smile.
‘Not me. I went a bit off the rails with stupid boys at school, got in with the wrong crowd. It seemed a real hoot at the time but where has it got me? Nowhere. No qualifications. I’m stuck in this snobby dump and can’t even get a job in the Co-op in Radstock.’
‘You’re very young, plenty of time yet,’ Patrick told her, probably feeling that it was not his place to give her any more advice on the matter.
‘I can’t get over it,’ Tina whispered, staring at nothing. ‘Those people, those poor people that I spoke to, sat with at that table for a few minutes, are all dead. The other bloke even bought me a drink. They were miserable, you could tell that. Hated living here. Keith had already said to me that he hated the countryside. Cow muck all over the roads, he said. Idiots on horses with no regard for motorists. No proper street lights. I didn’t agree with him but I could see his point. And now they’re all dead and—’
Astoundingly, Tina then burst into tears.
Even more astoundingly, after we had done our best to comfort her, I found myself asking her if she would like to visit us in Devon and help Carrie look after the children to see if she would be interested in training as a nanny.
In the middle of all this Carrick rang asking us to be present when he questioned Brian Stonelake shortly.
Six
Stonelake had been told about the desecration of his father’s grave. It was impossible to gauge any reaction, his face giving nothing away, with its usual dour expression as he sat next to his solicitor, who had grey hair, suit, tie, face and teeth and who, after new tapes had been put into the recorder and it had been switched on, objected to the fact that there were three of us about to tackle his client during this second interview.
‘Miss Langley is a trainee,’ Carrick explained, introducing us to him. ‘She won’t ask questions, or if she does, it will only be in order to clarify matters in her own mind.’
This seemed to satisfy the man, whose name Carrick had just told us was Mr O’Malley.
‘Would you mind if she took notes?’ Carrick went on to enquire of him.
I was given an all-over glance. ‘As long as they roughly match what is recorded on tape,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘And I would like to point out that it is normal for notes to be made at the first interview, any salient points being clarified at the second.’
‘That is standard procedure,’ Carrick agreed urbanely. ‘And if you remember, another of my colleagues sat in and endeavoured to do just that. Perhaps this time though you might encourage your client to reply in more helpful fashion to some of the questions than by saying, “No comment,” and then something worthwhile can be achieved. If Mr Stonelake still refuses to cooperate I shall apply to a magistrate for a warrant for further detention.’ Then to Stonelake, ‘But hear this: you’re not going to be bailed even if you agree to answer our questions about the finding of a knife on your premises which we now know was a murder weapon. I shall have you remanded in custody.’
Whereupon acting Superintendent Gillard looked upon the detained person with malicious cheerfulness. Carrick, still perhaps nursing a few grievances, then bounced him into cautioning Stonelake and he calmly did so, without having to resort to any scraps of paper upon which he had written it down. Sometimes I love Patrick to bits.
‘So,’ Carrick said, making himself as comfortable as the bolted-to-the-floor chairs permitted, ‘after three people were murdered on your farm we found a bloodstained knife among a pile of stolen horse tack in the old cart shed by the house. It’s a large knife, the sort of thing used by chefs for cutting up meat, and the blood on it is human. Can you explain how the knife might have got there?’
I knew that DNA testing would take longer.
‘No,’ Stonelake said sullenly. ‘I don’t have cooking knives. I don’t cook. The killer must have chucked it in there.’
‘But it’s hardly close to the scene of the crime.’
‘No comment.’
‘We’ve traced the owners of all the saddlery and harness, by the way,’ Carrick continued. ‘Except for a matching American saddle, bridle and—’
O’Malley butted in with, ‘There’s nothing to connect my client with the thefts of the horse tack except where it was discovered. The farm’s not lived in now. Anyone could have hidden it there.’
‘If you’ll kindly allow me to finish,’ Carrick said. He resumed, ‘And all of these people, again with one exception, had bought logs, kindling or hay from you in the past twelve months. Now, I know we’re not talking about that charge right now but it seems to me that if you’ve concealed your ill-gotten gains in the cart shed you might very well hide a weapon with which you’d murdered three people there as well.’
‘No. It’s nothing to do with me,’ Stonelake said.
‘None of it?’
‘None of it. I just kept a few bags of animal feed in there. I’d forgotten about them and the bales must’ve been piled in front. Likely been there since Dad reared calves in the building.’
‘Odd then that they should look so new, have sell-by dates of two years hence and be for ponies,’ Patrick murmured. ‘Tell the truth. Everything stashed away in there was stolen or dodgy, wasn’t it?’
‘No!’ Stonelake bellowed.
‘Why have a space behind the hay bales?’
‘It was handy because of light-fingered locals, that’s why!’
‘Oh, so you did have a habit of hiding things there.’
After a short pause, looking a bit sick, Stonelake muttered, ‘Sometimes.’
Patrick turned to Carrick. ‘Chief Inspector, would you say that the crime rate in the Hinton Littlemoor area warranted such precautions?’
&n
bsp; ‘No,’ Carrick answered. ‘Mr Stonelake, how well did you know the Manleys and Keith Davies?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Not at all?’
‘No. Never clapped eyes on ’em – to know who they were, I mean.’
‘It wouldn’t appear that any of the people we’ve spoken to have a good word to say on your behalf. They seemed to think it was just the latest nasty occurrence at Hagtop.’
‘The other things were all in the past, nothing to do with me or my family.’
‘So you and your father didn’t take pot-shots at those walking on your land; mushroom-pickers, bird-watchers and so forth, immediately deciding they were poachers and opened fire? Or perhaps you didn’t want them there because of your criminal activities.’
Stonelake was shaking his head all through this last question. ‘We might have been a bit hasty a couple of times but no one’s going to the trouble of knocking off folk on my property just to get back at me for that, are they?’
‘You’re right. That’s what convinces me that you’re in this up to your neck. There are quite a few valuable antiques in Mr and Mrs Manley’s flat and also an open fireplace where they’d obviously had a wood fire. Are you sure you didn’t supply them with logs before you left the farm?’ When Stonelake did not respond he added, ‘It’s fairly easy to do a bit of forensic work on the unburned logs in the basket there, and find out if they came from your woods.’
I shot a sideways glance at Patrick, fairly convinced that this was the Scottish version of old baloney, but he was looking fixedly at Stonelake.
‘I bought in some wood as well.’
‘Who from?’
‘Just a jobbing gardener bloke who’d sometimes be asked to take down trees, or lop them. People expect the wood to be taken away if they’ve no stove of their own.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I just know him as Frankie. Surnames don’t matter.’
‘What about Keith Davies?’
‘What about him?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘No. I said as much just now, didn’t I?’
Patrick said, ‘Come now, you spend some, if not most, evenings in the pub, don’t you, when you’re not drinking at home. Do you mean to tell us that you didn’t bump into him down there, someone who had a reputation for being confrontational and in everyone’s face even when he was sober?’
‘He might have been there but I don’t know what he looked like, do I?’
‘The victims’ photographs were in all the local papers.’
After, one assumed, considerable efforts on the part of mortuary attendants to produce something that could be presented to the general public.
‘I don’t read the papers.’
‘There seemed to be a hell of a lot of newspapers scattered all over your living room.’
O’Malley interrupted with, ‘This is pure conjecture and a waste of time.’
‘Where were you on the day of the murders?’ Patrick asked Stonelake, ignoring the solicitor.
‘As you just said yourself, in the bloody pub.’
‘The bodies were discovered late afternoon by a walking group. Were you in the pub at lunchtime?’
‘Yes – no – I can’t remember.’
‘Were you at home, then? Think, you must be able to remember.’
‘Well, I can’t,’ said the other after a pause.
Carrick said, ‘I obtained a warrant and had your bungalow searched. There are some rather good pieces of furniture there.’
‘It’s mine! All of it. Belonged to my parents.’
‘Not to mention a couple of bronze equestrian figures after the style of Stubbs and some silver dishes which were packed in a box in the loft.’
‘They’re mine too.’
‘Well, I don’t think they are, as both closely fit the descriptions of items stolen from a country house in Wiltshire last month. Rare items, worth a lot of money. Too hot to try to get rid of yet, eh?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘And now there’s the bad business of what happened in St Michael’s churchyard,’ Carrick continued.
Stonelake shrugged angrily. ‘No comment.’
Rightly, this got under Carrick’s skin. ‘I think that if someone had removed my father’s coffin from its place of rest I would have something to say on the subject. Mr Stonelake, this is a very serious matter and perhaps if I now tell you that I’ve just been told that no human remains had ever been interred in it you’ll come up with one or two theories.’
Stonelake looked appalled. ‘What? He was never in there? Where the hell is he, then?’
‘You tell me. Was his coffin a good place to hide stolen property?’
Stonelake lunged out of his chair at Carrick but was fielded neatly by Patrick before he could do the DCI any damage, and reseated, gently.
‘My client would like a short break,’ O’Malley said quickly.
‘Certainly. Ten minutes,’ Carrick said, magnanimously adding, ‘I’ll arrange for some tea to be brought in.’ He stopped the tape, gathered up his papers and at a sign from him Patrick and I followed him out.
‘You’ll have lost the momentum,’ Patrick observed as we sat in the canteen, absorbing sludge-coloured coffee.
‘I know, but I’d rather lose it early on than later when I’m obliged to give him a break and might be on to something more useful. Sorry, I forgot to mention the stuff we found at the bungalow. It was confirmed earlier today that it came from Westbury House. They’ve photographs of the art collection there so there’s no mistaking it.’
‘Did forensics have any ideas when you spoke to the lab just now as to what had been in the coffin?’ Patrick asked.
‘There was just that black dusty stuff. No trace of anything else. Remember seeing it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tea.’
‘Tea?’ Patrick and I exclaimed together.
Carrick rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Yeah, loose tea. But not new tea, used and then dried-out tea. It’s enough to give you the screaming habdabs, isn’t it?’
Despite what Carrick had hoped nothing useful was achieved that night and Stonelake was remanded in custody. The DCI looked fit to drop.
‘So let’s go through what we have,’ Patrick said. ‘It almost goes without saying that Stonelake nicked the horse tack. Or nicked most of it and is a fence for the rest. The feed’s stolen too. Plus he’s certainly in all kinds of similar scams, including the things found in the loft at his home and other crimes that we don’t yet know about yet. But I don’t think he’s involved in whatever’s going on with regard to Barney’s coffin. The look of shock on his face when Carrick told him was genuine and I’m not sure he’s that much of a bastard. I’m keeping an open mind as to whether he’s involved in the murders but we might learn a bit more at the mill. But when you think about it, if a serious crook wanted a nice quiet place to take people apart to gain info from them or just kill them what better venue than an empty barn out of earshot of everywhere that belongs to the local bad boy who will automatically become the police’s number-one suspect?’
It was the following morning and we were walking down the rectory drive on our way to the mill, where we intended to have a look round the murder victims’ flats having ‘acquired’ the keys and the case file. Neither of us felt comfortable at going behind Carrick’s back.
I said, ‘But that theory suggests that the crime’s a local one and not organized by some city gang. It’s not as though the building can be seen from any main roads. You’d have to live in the area and know about Stonelake and that the farm was, at present, uninhabited.’
‘One explanation could be that a gang member lives in the vicinity and reports back to the big bossman.’ Patrick paused, looking thoughtful. ‘Or lived. It could have been Davies himself.’
‘It would be a good idea to examine his criminal record in some detail, then. See who his connections were. But if he was a p
ast member of a gang and the killings were some kind of score-settling where do the others fit in? Was Chris Manley really a policeman before he retired?’
Patrick patted the file that was beneath his arm. ‘I was too weary last night to plough my way through every word of this – up until now Carrick’s been sitting on it like a broody hen – but a quick flip through told me only that investigating the victims’ pasts is still on-going.’ He stopped to survey the damaged border. ‘At least this is being fixed today.’
Plants had appeared as if by magic on the rectory doorstep, mostly young flowering shrubs, some of which John’s parishioners had obviously dug up from their own gardens. And other gifts; pots of spring bulbs, a bouquet of viburnum and winter sweet that was filling the dining room with scent, even some new fence posts.
We sat on a seat on the village green to read through the reports again.
‘No sign of a struggle in either property,’ Patrick murmured, still reading. ‘Fingerprints everywhere but only those of the inhabitants, plus Davies’s in the Manleys’ but not theirs in his. So he came to see them but they stayed out of his place. That would tie in with what Pascal Lapointe said; that he was working for them as a driver. And as you suggested, as their minder. We must be careful here; it did not make Christopher Manley a bent copper just because he employed an ex-con.’
‘It’s strange that they all lived in the same building. The Manleys could have got caught up in something iffy that Davies was up to.’
The doors of both flats had police seals but we had the means to reseal them. We decided to have a look at Keith Davies’s home first perhaps, on reflection, subconsciously thinking it might be the most rewarding. Patrick immediately voiced the thought that went through my head and I wondered, not for the first time, if there was such a thing as telepathy.
‘Are we being superior and clever-clogsy imagining we’ll spot something that about a dozen experts have missed?’
‘Professionals with experience in another branch of investigation will always have a fresh slant on any case,’ I said.
Hand on the doorknob he said, ‘Ingrid, that’s so bloody good I’m going to write it down and use it in the ten-thousand-word essay I’ll no doubt have to write at some stage.’
Tainted Ground Page 9