by Roger Keevil
Diggory scratched his head. “Oh, now you’re asking. I mean, what do you call partic’lar? Thinking about it, I remember hearing another car out the front at some time, but I was round the side so I never saw it, just heard it, so I couldn’t tell you anything about that. I don’t have time to go checking up on who comes and goes – I’ve got my work to do.”
“Members of the family?” hazarded the inspector.
“I saw Master James’s car again, going round from the front to the stable yard sometime,” said the gardener. “Must have been later on, but I couldn’t say exactly when.”
At Constable’s side, Copper gave a small sigh of frustration. “You can’t be more precise than that, sir? We always like to be as exact as we can.”
Diggory shook his head. “Sorry, sergeant. I can’t go looking at my watch every five seconds in case something happens.” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “Here, hold on. Maybe you’ll like this a bit better. There was another car, but that wasn’t till the evening, and I know exactly when that was, on account of the television.”
“How come, sir?”
“‘Cos it was during the adverts. I’d put on that ‘Midwinter Murders’ programme – I like a good murder mystery on the telly, me.” He paused and pulled a face. “Although I have to say, it feels a bit funny being in the middle of one in real life. Anyway, it was just getting going, and then the first lot of adverts came on, and I always turn the sound off during them ‘cos they drive me mad, what with silly girls dancing about trying to sell me sofas and suchlike. So that would have been quarter past eight, near enough on the dot. And that was when I heard a car go past my lodge. I didn’t see it, so I don’t know whose it was, and I don’t know which way it was going. I didn’t really think anything of it, and if the sound hadn’t been off I doubt if I’d have heard it at all. And then I went and cooked my bit of supper and then I settled down to watch the rest of the programme. Tell the truth, I dozed off for a bit, so I never found out who did it in the end. And then I went to bed, and that’s all I know till the police came knocking this morning.”
“Could it have been Mr. Booker-Gresham’s car?” asked Copper. “You mentioned he keeps it in the yard here.”
“I s’pose it must have been. It couldn’t have been her ladyship, ‘cos she doesn’t drive.”
“And on the subject of the family, Mr. Diggory,” intervened Constable, “you haven’t mentioned whether you saw Lady Effingham at all during the day.”
“Now as it happens, I did,” said Diggory. “That was a bit earlier, when I was still up here at the house, and I can tell you exactly when that was and all.”
“Go on, sir,” said Copper, encouraged.
“And that was because I did look at my watch,” continued the gardener. “See, I’d just finished up, which was just on seven o’clock …”
“Isn’t that rather late to be still working, sir?”
“Ah, well, I hadn’t started till late, like I told you, what with doing the work on my own veg patch, so I carried on a bit later, on account of I don’t like to take advantage, the family being good to me and all. Anyway, I was just collecting my things up to put away, and that door over there …” The detectives craned to look as he indicated a door in the wall at the far corner of the stable yard, just beyond the edge of the house. “That door gives on to the north terrace, and I noticed I must have left it open, so I went to close it, and I saw her ladyship down in one of the borders outside the library windows. Lovely little borders, they are – alpines, mostly, which are a particular favourite of her ladyship’s, which is why she got me to put them in there in the first place.”
“You say she was down in the border?” queried Copper.
“That’s right,” confirmed Diggory. “Crouched down, she was. I think she must have been pulling up a couple of weeds. Very hot on that, she is – she loves her garden, and she’s always telling me if I’ve missed something. Which I admit I do once in a while, ‘cos my eyesight ain’t as good as it used to be. Anyway, I ducked back, ‘cos to be frank, I didn’t want her giving me an earful when I wanted to get off, and when I looked again a couple of minutes later, she’d gone. I thought, dodged a bullet on that one, my lad.” The wheezing chuckle returned.
“You saying that reminds me of something I wanted to ask you, Mr. Diggory,” resumed Constable. “During last night’s events, there was a shot heard. We have information that the weapon involved may have been a shotgun. So tell me, Mr. Diggory … do you keep a shotgun?”
The gardener gave a pitying look. “‘Course I do! Wouldn’t be much use trying to look after the gardens at a house like this and not have a shotgun.”
“Really, sir?”
“Rabbits,” explained Diggory shortly. “They cause havoc, the little perishers. Can’t keep them out of some of the flowerbeds, and as for my veg patch, I’ve had to put all sorts of fencing and netting in, and the little blighters still get through. I have to say, I miss a lot more that I get, but I don’t half give them a scare. And then there’s pigeons. Nothing better for the pot at the right time of year than a nice plump pigeon. And Mrs. Carruthers, she makes a lovely pigeon pie.”
“And you keep this shotgun where?” asked Constable, declining to be sidetracked by culinary considerations. “Safely locked away, I assume?”
“Ah.” Diggory shifted evasively. “Well, of course, I’ve got a cabinet for it. Just in that cupboard there. But I have to admit, I don’t always remember to lock it. No need, you see. Not round here.”
“May we see?”
“‘Course you can. And you’ll find it’s nice and clean. I always gives it a good clean before I puts it away.” The gardener heaved himself to his feet and opened the door of the rather worm-eaten cupboard in the corner. Bolted to the wall within the cupboard was a sturdy metal cabinet. The padlock hung loose. The door stood ajar. The cabinet was empty.
Chapter 9
Leaving behind them a considerably chastened gardener, the detectives made their way back round the house through the shrubbery to where they had left their car on the front drive.
“You’re not happy, guv, are you?” remarked Dave Copper. “I can tell.”
“What do you think?” retorted Andy Constable. “A firearm left sloshing about, in contravention of all the regulations, and lo and behold, what do we have but a murder where there’s a shotgun involved, and no sign of it. Somebody had better find it pretty soon, or else.”
“What next then, guv?” enquired Copper. “I can’t imagine SOCO aren’t already on the case.”
Constable consulted his watch. “It’s probably too late to do much else today. I rather fancy checking with the SOCO team anyway to see what results they’ve got for us, but I wouldn’t mind betting that they’ve probably vanished for the day.” A quick word with the solitary uniformed officer who stood post outside the front door of Effingham Hall confirmed his surmise. “Right. Decision time. We’ll start afresh in the morning. You can make a list. There’s that solicitor woman to speak to, if she’s deigned to turn up at her office, and if the doctor and SOCO haven’t got something worthwhile to tell us by then, I shall want to know the reason why. So, back to home ground, I think. As someone once said, tomorrow is another day.”
*
“There’s one advantage to working off the home patch,” remarked Andy Constable the following morning, as he pulled past a dawdling caravan and accelerated along a stretch of dual carriageway. “We do get to experience the delights of the English countryside instead of traipsing about our normal urban environment.”
“You have to admit, guv,” said Dave Copper, “that working off our home patch has turned into something of a habit. I mean, even that holiday in Spain got hijacked by the bloke in the trench. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a Spanish holiday brochure in quite the same way again.”
“Don’t be churlish, sergeant,” smiled Constable. “You did get a free cruise home out of it. In some considerable luxury, if I recall.”
> “That’s all very well,” countered Copper. “But if it’s all the same to you, I prefer my nautical dead bodies to turn up in pirate movies rather than on cruise ships.”
“Then you’ll be all the more pleased that we have a nice normal land-based dead body to deal with on this occasion.”
“Not entirely sure that I’d call Sir Richard Effingham a nice normal dead body, sir, according to what Dr. Livermore said on the phone this morning, sir.”
“Yes, what exactly did he say?”
“Not actually that much, guv. He seemed a bit reluctant to go into too much detail, and I think he was in a bit of a rush because he said he had an exhumation to go to. Apparently somebody’s been accused of leaving bits of medical ironmongery inside people during operations at the local hospital, and they were digging up one of the supposed victims.”
“Charming! Couldn’t they just go along with a metal detector, instead of hauling some poor soul out of their grave?”
“Now that, guv, if I may say so, sounds like the sort of off-colour remark which you’re always ticking me off for.”
“You’re right, sergeant,” agreed Constable with a smile. “You’re obviously proving a bad influence on me. So, how long is this proposed excavation going to take, do we know?”
“Only a couple of hours, guv. But it’s no problem, because I also spoke to Sergeant Singleton on the SOCO team, and they’re expecting us any time this morning, so we can fit them in first, before we go on to the mortuary.”
“This is all very organised. Well done. And how about our elusive lady solicitor?”
“Susan Robson-Bilkes? Still being elusive, I’m afraid, sir. I’ve tried a couple of times, but it goes straight to voice-mail. I’ll keep trying.”
“Do. If there’s anything in what Ed Short told us and she had some sort of animus against Sir Richard, we want to know the nuts and bolts of it to see whether we need to add her name to our list of persons of interest. Now, let me concentrate,” said Constable, as the car began to enter the straggling outskirts of Westchester. “I haven’t been this way for quite a while, but if my memory serves me correctly, the main police station should be somewhere along here on the right.”
“Used to be, sir,” corrected Copper. “They moved out last year. Apparently they’ve got a shiny new H.Q. Just near the railway station. Sergeant Singleton says if you just follow the British Rail symbol on the road signs, it’ll take you straight there.”
The town’s new police premises were indeed striking. Seven ultra-modern storeys of mirrored glass interspersed with panels of shining steel and vivid red cladding, topped with an impressive array of aerials, gave a clear statement that the forces of law and order were present in strength, and meant undoubted business. After a brief word and a flash of credentials at the barrier, Constable pulled into the car park and, Copper in tow, climbed the flight of steps to the front door, which was, he noted, flanked by a pair of incongruously-traditional blue lamps. Directed by the reception desk, the two detectives took the lift to the sixth floor. As the lift door opened, Sergeant Una Singleton stood waiting to welcome them.
“Good morning, sir. Sergeant.” She greeted the detectives with a smile for Constable and an even warmer one for Copper. “Front Desk told us you were on your way up, so I thought I’d give you the personal conducted tour. If you’d like to come this way.” She led the way along a brightly-lit corridor between a series of open-plan offices whose windows gave views over the roofs of the town below, and through a double swing door into a large laboratory dazzling with the gleam of spotlights, stainless steel, and brilliant white work surfaces. Operatives, singly or in murmuring pairs, were dotted about at benches or workstations, intent on their observations and analyses of the items before them. Floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall gave an uninterrupted vista over the suburbs below, which rapidly petered out into a patchwork of greenery as the countryside beyond faded towards a hazy horizon.
Constable paused in admiration. “I can see why you put in for that transfer, sergeant,” he remarked. “This is all extremely glamorous and state-of-the-art. It’s a far cry from the gloomy burrow our team has to work in back at base.”
“It is that, sir,” agreed Singleton.
“Don’t you get distracted by the views?” asked Copper, as a wheeling flock of starlings swept past the window. “I know I would.”
“We try not to,” smiled the SOCO officer. “And sometimes, if the sunsets are just too beautiful, we force ourselves to close the blinds.”
“My heart bleeds,” muttered Copper.
“And delightful though it be,” continued the inspector, “we haven’t actually come here to admire the view. I’m hoping for a rather more close-up look at things.”
“I think we can manage that, sir,” said Singleton. “In fact, I’ve laid all the relevant material out on the table in the conference room next door.”
“Then let’s take a look at it.”
“Would you like a coffee before we start, sir?”
“Always sharpens my brain cells, guv,” put in Copper with a hopeful expression.
“Well, in that case,” said Constable, “on the remote off-chance that Copper’s brain cells will be needed, I suppose I’d better say yes.”
“James,” Singleton called across to one of her young colleagues, who looked barely old enough to be dissecting frogs in a secondary school classroom. “Can you rustle up a pot of coffee and three mugs for us. Thanks.” She opened a door and ushered the two detectives into a room adjoining the lab, where a range of items, all encased in protective plastic coverings, were spread out along the top of a large table. “And here we have it.”
“And what precisely is ‘it’?” enquired Constable. “Although I don’t need to ask in respect of that particular one. I remember that very well indeed.”
“The dagger?” replied Singleton, picking it up and handing it to the inspector for closer examination. “I imagine the last time you saw it, it was still in the victim’s chest.”
“Buried up to the hilt, if I remember correctly,” said the inspector, with a slight inward shudder.
“And exceptionally sharp,” warned Singleton, “so you should be careful how you handle it.”
“And let me guess – you’re saying that it is so sharp that it wouldn’t take a great deal of force to drive it home?”
“That’s right.”
“And therefore no help in deciding the sort of person who might have used it.”
“Probably not, sir,” admitted Singleton.
Constable sighed. “Does it tell us anything? Prints?” He did not sound particularly hopeful.
The SOCO officer shook her head. “Sadly not, sir. Some smudges where they might have been, but they’re not even clear enough to be positive about that. Certainly nothing we can lift a DNA sample off. Somebody has made what I might describe as an amateurish but annoyingly effective attempt at wiping the thing clean.”
“Any information regarding exactly what it is?”
“Oh, that’s the easiest part, sir. Two minutes on the internet tells you pretty much everything you need to know. It’s a genuine antique, most probably Turkish, seventeenth century. There’s one remarkably like it in the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul. Damascened steel blade, silver handle studded with genuine precious stones, including that particularly impressive cabochon emerald, with a couple of pieces of rather nice filigree work.”
“And sounding very valuable.”
“More than likely, sir. We haven’t got around to assessing value. It seemed the last thing to be thinking about.”
“Well, we’ve got a fairly good idea where this came from, guv,” put in Copper. “There’s that gap in the cabinet in Sir Richard’s library which looks spot-on for this, so we can pretty much rule out some mad maniac from Istanbul turning up, weapon in hand.”
“Disregarding my sergeant’s rather extravagant flight of fancy,” remarked Constable drily to Singleton, “it does rather look
as if the person who wielded the weapon took advantage of what was available on site rather than bringing it with them. Fair assessment?”
“Quite possibly, sir,” replied Singleton. “We examined the cabinet with all the other oriental bits and bobs in it, because we were thinking along the same lines as Sergeant Copper. But I’m afraid the only clear prints on it were those of Sir Richard himself.”
“Hum. That’s helpful. I can’t see him stabbing himself in the chest, what with everything else that seems to have been going on. Right. Let’s move on.”
At that moment there came a tap at the door, and Singleton’s young colleague entered with the tray bearing the coffee things, and proceedings came to a halt for a few moments while the police officers poured themselves a drink. But after a brief pause - “Feeling better, sergeant?” “Raring to go, guv.” - the investigation resumed.
“I don’t know if you’ve got this stuff in any particular sequence of importance, Singleton?” enquired the inspector.
“Not really, sir.”
“In which case,” suggested Constable, “having started in the centre of things with the body itself, let’s work outwards. So what was nearest to our victim?”
“That would be this, sir.” Singleton indicated a cut-glass tumbler. “It was on the victim’s desk.”
“An empty glass. Shall I make a note of that, guv?”
“Thank you, Copper. Flippant remarks are exactly what we need at a time like this.”
“Sorry, guv.”
“Do go on, Sergeant Singleton, and make an effort to ignore the heckling from the cheap seats.”
“Of course, sir.” The SOCO officer gave a small smile which mingled suppressed amusement with a touch of sympathy for her colleague. “But, in fact, it’s not the glass itself which is interesting, but what was in it. Which one of my colleagues finished analysing not long before you arrived.”