by Clare Curzon
‘Am I right in assuming you would be financially better off by marrying Miss Winter?’ Salmon asked with the hint of a sneer.
‘And are deprived of any such benefit by the fact of her death?’ Yeadings intervened while the man paused, needled at the implication.
‘We hadn’t discussed money at any depth. Sheila had her own business; I have mine. I’m not a pauper, inspector.’
‘Earlier, when we discussed her special name for you – her pet name, so to speak – you refused to say how or when you came to meet Miss Winter. Are you ready to tell us now?’
Salmon was looking smug. He must know the answer to that already, Yeadings thought.
Baker straightened his back and gave the DI a defiant stare. ‘We met through a London dating agency. It was while she and her mother were still living in Putney. I selected that one because I didn’t care to have my private life talked about locally.’ He spoke quietly, with dignity.
‘Your private affairs; I see. So was Miss Winter the first – er, client you were paired with, Mr Baker?’
‘I met four ladies in all, but we weren’t suited in the other three cases.’
‘This is a personal matter, and I’m not sure it’s relevant,’ Yeadings put in.
‘I think it is.’ Salmon was adamant. ‘It isn’t clear whether Mr Baker was looking for a rich wife or a fun companion.’
Yeadings was about to intervene again but Baker beat him to it. ‘I was lonely. I admit that, and at first I wanted a personable woman I could take out for meals and perhaps to the theatre. Someone who could talk about the sort of things I’m interested in. Two of the women I was introduced to were simply looking for a rich husband, and I wasn’t up to standard. The third – ’ his Punch-like features twisted with sardonic humour, ‘had an insatiable appetite for alcohol and bedtime athletics.
‘I almost gave up on the agency then, but Sheila had just come on their books, after her failed relationship with Jani Nederkamp. She was hurt, seemed even a little bitter, but I discovered she wasn’t like that underneath. She needed someone ordinary, like me. It took a little while, but she came to think the same.’ His voice broke. ‘We meant to – to spend the rest of our lives together.’
‘The night of her murder,’ Salmon said purposefully, ‘where were you?’
‘Waiting for her at the Burnham Beeches Hotel. If she hadn’t arrived by nine o’clock I would know she couldn’t get away. That was our standing arrangement.’
‘So when did she arrive?’
‘She didn’t. I waited an extra half-hour, cancelled the room, got some food at the bar and went home, expecting she’d ring me in the morning from Greenvale. That would be Sunday, usually her busiest day of the week there.’
‘And it seemed she’d stood you up.’
‘I didn’t think that. I don’t know what I did think; just a horrible feeling that something was wrong. Maybe her mother was ill, or had found out about us and was making trouble. Something like that.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I went to Greenvale. She wasn’t there. Nobody seemed to know anything. Then the police turned up. Word went around like wildfire. I couldn’t believe she was – gone.’
‘Did you speak to anyone about it?’
‘How could I? No one – knew about us. I got in the car and drove around, trying to understand. It didn’t make sense. There was nothing I could do. Everything was over.’
Yeadings watched the fists balled on the table between them. The man was at the end of his tether, but Salmon wasn’t giving up on him.
‘You’ve said you never visited Ashbourne House once the conversion was completed. I want you to think about that again. Do you want to alter your statement?’
‘No. I called recently to deliver some copper piping to the builder, Frank Perrin, but I stayed outside. He wanted it for a new job elsewhere.’
The DI leaned forward, fixing Baker with his little, piggy eyes. ‘So you weren’t making love to Sheila Winter in what they called the “drawing-room” two weeks back?’
‘I certainly wasn’t.’
‘Then who was? – because somebody was hard at it, and never noticed my sergeant watching from the doorway!’
They’d had to let him go, with the warning that he shouldn’t leave the area without informing the station. He appeared dazed, incredulous.
‘So what do you make of that?’ Yeadings asked the DI.
‘He’ll do nicely.’ Salmon’s jaw jutted as he kept pace along the corridor.
‘I thought you had somebody else in your sights.’
‘That doesn’t rule out our man here. You heard what Beaumont said at the briefing. There has to be more than one person involved in the killing: one to drive the body to Henley, and a second to get him away afterwards. We’ve drawn a blank on taxis over the whole area.’
‘If he needed to get away. Why couldn’t he have stayed there, at least overnight?’
‘It’s hardly likely. I’d rather go for a bike being left there for him in advance. It wouldn’t take long for Barry Childe to get back to Marlow that way. But what’s wrong with the pair of them in it together? Both were connected with the garden centre, getting plenty of opportunities to plan it when they met up through work. And Baker has no alibi for after 9.30pm at Burnham Beeches. He’d already set up a meeting with the woman. We’ve only his word for it that it wasn’t meant to be later elsewhere.’
He had the bit between his teeth, Yeadings thought regretfully. ‘Motive?’ he queried mildly. ‘Sheila Winter’s dead, so Baker loses any hopes of gain from the alliance. Unless, of course, you think there’s a more recent will than the one left with her solicitor.’
Salmon stopped in his tracks. ‘That wouldn’t surprise me. Or a secret life insurance. Why not? Baker’s a twisted bastard, making her keep everything quiet, even from her old lady. There’s no confirmation of anything he claims. Sheila Winter left no indication she was planning to marry. Final arrangements were left for him to fix.’
A further thought struck him. ‘Suppose it was all in his head and she suddenly faced him out with it. He lost his temper and …’
‘ …and happened to have a kitchen knife handy to stab her with? You can’t have it both ways. Either it was premeditated or done in a fit of passion. And, if you remember, Dr Fenner, her father, believed she had some secret to share with him soon. He’d been hoping she would announce she’d found someone to settle down with.’
Salmon scowled. Bouncing his ideas off the superintendent was like hitting your head against a brick wall. Why couldn’t he stick to his desk and leave the thinking to him? What he needed right now was a stiff drink and a chance to work out just where he’d reached in the reasoning. He had to hold on to the idea of Childe and Baker in this together, as a partnership. Hadn’t the plumber been the means of the ex-con getting this cushy job with the dead woman? The trouble was that Baker seemed every bit as thick with Frank Perrin, and Perrin had no alibi for the night of the killing. There couldn’t have been three of them in cahoots over it, could there? But then again, why not?
Neil Raynes would have gone up to see Rosemary again as soon as Max went off to do the shopping but for a rankling memory of what Marty had said: ‘your new Svengali’. Was that what he really thought? – that Neil couldn’t function fully on his own; must have a hypnotist to control his mind, a puppeteer to pull his strings?
A bloody lie. He could hype himself up to take charge of his life when he knew Marty wasn’t there. It was only at other times that he let himself go, took risks, knowing Marty could cushion his falls. But now he was in the driving seat, making the changeover. If he wanted, he could go and see the girl. Or he could choose not to. Sometime he had to get himself out of this cycle of dependence. It just took some catalyst. Maybe she was it.
Marty was mad to say anything so hurtful. Or manipulative; meaning to produce some effect. To keep them apart? Well, fuck Marty then. He’d please himself.
He burnt up hi
s resentment by punishing the carpets with the vacuum cleaner and sloshing disinfectant round the kitchen, but he’d barely reached a decision when he heard Max’s car return. Now it was too late, unless he walked in on them together. That might peeve her, having him act gooseberry, though he could pretend he’d thought she was on her own and might need some help.
With luck she’d ask him to stay on. He might learn what it was about the man that appealed to her. He seemed so ordinary; not a superman body, and he wore specs which slipped down his nose, so that he was always pushing them back up with one index finger. A wimp. Visually a sort of adult Harry Potter, but without the magic powers. Man for man, he was a better proposition himself.
He made the trek downstairs, through to the hall and up to the gallery. There was no sound of voices. Had Max Harris just dumped the provisions and taken her straight to bed? He put his head against the door panel and then there came the muffled sound of crockery. The fridge door slammed. He rang the bell. It was Rosemary who came.
‘Hi,’ he said brightly. ‘Anything I can do for you?’
‘Sure;’ she said easily, ‘share a meal with us. Max is putting something together in the kitchen. Come through and keep me company.’
He followed her in. ‘With Marty away, I’m actually missing the job. Never thought I could.’
‘Yes, I heard he’d gone, just when the police wanted to ask him some questions.’
Neil hooted. ‘They don’t think he could be the one who attacked you? They must be more cretinous than I thought. Who told you they wanted to see him?’
She didn’t seem sure. ‘I think Max overheard one of the neighbours. “What the great will do the less will prattle of,” you know.’
He eased himself into an armchair. ‘I never took you for a Shakespeare fan.’
‘There’s a lot about me you don’t know,’ she teased.
God, but she was easy to get on with. No silly girly giggles. She was someone you could talk to. Totally wasted on that wimp Harris. ‘So wise me up,’ he invited. ‘It’s a fascinating subject.’
‘I’m not sure that it is.’ She paused, uncertain. ‘I lost both my parents when I was ten and got passed to my mother’s older half-sister.’
It wasn’t something she would easily tell a near stranger, but it seemed almost in parallel with the boy’s history and she hoped it might loosen him up. She stole a glance at him and saw his face go wooden. No confidences coming, then.
‘I quite liked being sent away to school, but the holidays were pretty grim, unless I was invited to stay with friends.’
‘I guess you had plenty of those.’
‘One or two that I’ve kept up with,’ she admitted, ‘but children can be quite cruel if they think you’re anyway different from them, can’t they?’
‘Until you learn that what they think just doesn’t matter.’ He was sitting forward now, scowling into the carpet, bony hands tensely clasped between his knees. She knew that he was going to come through with it. Not that he’d be asking for sympathy. He just needed to unload some of the rancour, get her agreeing that what went wrong was others’ fault and not his; or perhaps not entirely his, because under it all he seemed honest enough.
‘As I told you before, I wasn’t totally orphaned like you,’ he said, ‘but I might just as well have been. Because Mother died when I was born, my father never could decide if it was my fault or his. But eventually he emerged from his work long enough to …’
He was biting his lower lip. ‘ …to marry again. She was a – scheming – little – shit actually, twenty-five years younger than him. Had all the necessary female attractions, and knew how to use them. On anybody to hand. It was the original marriage from Hell.
‘She taught me to drive, among other things. Underage, of course. Anyway, that’s how I came to kill her. In a car crash. Well, it finished me with the old man. Once I came out of hospital, patched up, and the police had had their say, I was less than dog crap. If I’d been older they’d have had me put away on a manslaughter charge. He could have stood that. We don’t meet. He pays me an allowance through Marty.’
‘But you’re making your way. You’re holding down a job, doing something useful.’
‘Yeah, like society should be grateful to me.’ He had changed back to the coarse voice he’d used when they first talked, weeks ago. It was his disguise when he felt vulnerable. Z remembered how different he’d sounded when he claimed to have a taste for older women: sophisticated. His voice sometimes took on an echo of Martin Chisholm’s irony. The older man had been his tutor in fighting back against the world, but he was still walking wounded.
A resounding crash sounded from the kitchen, followed by low-voiced expletives. Max put his head round the door, grinned and explained in one breath, ‘That was lunch and your best casserole. Hi, Neil, how are you? Let’s all go out for a ploughman’s, shall we?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was early, and in the Plough Inn at Speen the final place-settings were still being laid. Although the dining rooms were fully booked, Max managed to persuade the management otherwise. They settled in the bar to wait, and ordered a round of drinks.
Z made her kir last while Max worked through his pint. Remembering Chisholm’s warning, she wasn’t sure if Neil should have alcohol in view of his health, but she couldn’t show that she knew more about him than he’d cared to tell. It surely meant progress that he’d opened up and told her so much of the story behind his trauma, although not details of his own injuries in the car crash. Those, she hoped, could be gleaned from press or police reports. All she needed was the date and locality.
When the young man insisted on his turn to order drinks, she suggested they went to table before the rush started. As they carried their fresh drinks through, she tapped Max on the elbow and shook her head. ‘Ah,’ he said, picking up her glance towards Neil.
They seated themselves and discussed the menu. ‘Let me do the wine,’ Neil suggested, and was voted down. But since the subject was raised, and as a compliment to the chef’s reputation, Max flipped through the list and ordered a single bottle of Merlot. ‘Wine can’t hurt you if it’s the best,’ he murmured, ‘and we are having a meal.’
They chose separately from the main courses and Neil followed it with cheese, while the other two opted for fruit. The conversation stayed on mundane matters until, over the coffee, Neil asked Max about his work and the flow began. Even with an ingrained prejudice against the columnist, he had to admit then that Rosemary’s man must be something special.
‘You should read him,’ Rosemary said. ‘He writes the way he talks: shrewd, witty and a tad wry. He takes a simple subject and puts a new slant on it. Makes people think.’
‘My number one fan,’ Max allowed modestly.
‘I wouldn’t have thought Afghanistan was so simple,’ Neil objected, after some thought.
‘Sometimes I’m allowed to be serious.’
‘So how would you write about the things going on at Ashbourne House?’
‘I’d rather not. But it’s obviously been exercising your mind. Have you arrived at any theory?’
Neil frowned. ‘Weird things have happened, but nothing fits together. I mean, Sheila Winter – who would want to kill her? She was so ordinary; rather boring really, going on all the time about her precious garden centre. And then her stagy old mother. Do you know, she sometimes calls me Gordon. Do I look like a Gordon? She probably confuses me with her gin bottle. But weirdest of all is that creep Wormsley.’
‘Creep?’ Rosemary queried. ‘I know he’s rather paranoid about security, but why that?’
‘He creeps about, spying. He’s always watching, and sort of laughing to himself about us. Marty told me the Worm followed his car for miles one day before he shook him off.’
‘Coincidence,’ she said comfortably. ‘They both just happened to be heading in the same direction.’
‘No, it was deliberate. Marty turned off suddenly, to make the Worm go past. Then
a few minutes later Wormsley drove back and started searching down the way he’d gone. Marty had the Saab concealed, so in the end the Worm had to give up.’
‘Quite a cunning little ploy,’ Max commented. ‘Your Marty sounds very wise to the ways of the world.’
The young man’s brow puckered. ‘He’s – he’s good at things to do with cars,’ he admitted, sounding defensive. Z, in her CID hat, wondered if Martin Chisholm had any particular need to keep his comings and goings from public scrutiny. For a split second Neil had looked as if he knew he’d let something slip. So had the inquisitive Wormsley caught on to something there?
Returning after lunch, they made a detour and called in at Greenvale to pick up a giant poinsettia which Max was to donate to Rosemary’s flat. ‘Have you ever been here before?’ he asked Neil.
‘Yeah.’ His voice was droll. ‘I drove Mrs Winter out here two days back. She wanted to see what she’d inherited. Ended up nearly clearing out the whole place. Well, not exactly buying. I suppose the stuff was hers to take.’ He sounded uncertain. ‘Nice car, though.’ He darted a guilty glance at Rosemary ‘Even if I drove it into a ditch.’
She watched him. He seemed surprised at himself, as though confessing to such a minor accident had been something special – which perhaps it was, in view of his guilt over the earlier fatal crash. Being able to admit this mishap could be a breakthrough for him.
‘Country lanes!’ she said ruefully. ‘You barely get into top gear and there’s a flock of sheep all over the road or a harvester reversing from a gateway. Don’t I just know it! Reminds me I’m a natural townee.’
That seemed to pass it off. It was partly the drink, she supposed, that had loosed the young man’s tongue, but he seemed to be steady enough on his feet as he carried the potted poinsettia upstairs when Max dropped them off at the front door.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he told her, depositing the plant in her kitchen. ‘Marvellous lunch. Maybe we can have a return match sometime.’