Scene of Crime

by Jill McGown

  “It’s just that it might help us catch whoever did it if they try and sell any of it. I believe you’ve had a chance to check out the rest of the house?”

  “Yes—they don’t seem to have been anywhere else.” Bignall closed his eyes. “Sorry. I do know what some of the presents were, but I can’t think. Some of them were wrapped, and some weren’t. We always put them all under there until Christmas Day. Some of them had been opened—I just can’t think what they were.” He rose wearily. “Can I see her?” he asked.

  “We will need you to make formal identification,” Lloyd said. “But you might prefer to wait.”

  “No. I’d like to see her now.”

  In the kitchen, he nodded briefly. “I just had to see for myself,” he said. “Or I’d have gone on thinking it was all a mistake.”

  Lloyd could understand that. Having someone tell you your wife had been killed during a burglary was something you could choose not to believe; seeing her would draw a line under it at least. He ushered Bignall into the dining room. It really was important to know what was missing.

  Carl waved a hand at the shelves. “They’ve taken some ornaments,” he said. “I can’t really remember what was there.” He looked down and frowned. “There’s mud all over the carpet,” he said.

  “It might help us catch them,” said Lloyd.

  Bignall shook his head, and glanced over at the Christmas-decorated tree. “They’ve taken almost all the presents. I know that Estelle had got her—” He broke off, his eyes widening. “There was a portable stereo,” he said, pointing to the floor beneath the tree. “It’s gone.” He looked at Lloyd, his face pale.

  “Was it particularly important to you?” asked Lloyd.

  “It … it was Estelle’s present to me.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Lloyd said.

  One of the SOCOs came toward them. “Was it about so big?” she asked, spreading her hands. “Dark green?”

  “Yes,” said Bignall, nodding, his eyes wide.

  “Then I’ve got some good news at least,” she said. “It’s gone to the lab, sir. We found it beside the open window, so we think there’s a chance the intruder dropped it when he was disturbed. And he left a glove behind; there could be fingerprints on it.” She smiled sympathetically. “It won’t come to any harm.”

  Bignall nodded, still looking bewildered.

  Lloyd went out to the garden where a crime scene officer was asking for the photographer. At least they’d found something to photograph, he thought as he made his way down past the bricks to the bottom of the garden.

  “Got something?” he asked.

  “The rain’s been helpful,” said the officer. “We’ve got footprints. We found one set on the patio, but these have been made by someone else. I’ll be able to make a pretty good cast of them.”

  Footprints at the bottom of the garden tied in with Tom’s theory regarding the means of entry. And the SOCO seemed to be endorsing his two-intruder theory. Now for his other one. “Is either set likely to be female?”

  “Not unless she’s got very large feet. I’d guess a size ten or eleven shoe here, and maybe a nine on the patio.”

  So the altercation the neighbors heard had probably not been between the intruders, Lloyd thought, unless there had been at least three of them, one of whom didn’t leave footprints. It was perfectly possible not to step in mud, even crossing from one garden to the other, so there could have been a third intruder. But a disagreement followed by a death was always worth looking into. He looked back up the garden to the dining room and wondered.

  It could, of course, have been one of the reportedly frequent quarrels between Carl and his wife that happened to occur immediately before Carl left the house. And it could have been coincidental to the break-in; a quarrel being the last contact someone had with the deceased before being suddenly bereaved was not at all unusual, and very guilt-inducing. But if it was the Bignalls whom Mr. Jones had heard, it had been different from usual: this one had apparently sounded violent.

  So the question had to be asked, but he hadn’t asked it yet. Lloyd didn’t believe in asking questions when people expected him to ask them. Much better to catch them off guard, when they’d decided he wasn’t going to ask at all.

  Denis Leeward hadn’t got drunk; he’d sipped his beer through the pub quiz, in which his team had come second, and gone home to Meg, who asked what he’d done to himself when he was unable to mask the pain he felt when he sat down. He’d checked; he didn’t have any broken ribs. But they hurt like hell all the same.

  “Walked into the proverbial door,” he said, and smiled weakly. “I was leaving the treatment room just as the nurse was coming in. The door handle caught me right in the rib cage. No real harm done.”

  “How was Alan?” she asked as she went into the kitchen, and he heard the kettle being filled.

  Alan? Oh, of course. “Oh, he’s fine. Sends his love.”

  “Have you eaten?” she called through.

  No. No, he hadn’t eaten. And he was, now that she mentioned it, surprisingly hungry. “No—we just had a drink at the pub,” he said. “Played in a quiz team, would you believe? I wouldn’t mind some supper, if there’s any going.”

  “There’s cold chicken. Would you like a sandwich or would you rather have a salad or something?”

  “A sandwich would be fine.”

  He sank down into the armchair and looked around his comfortable, somewhat untidy sitting room, seeing it for the first time in years. Through the kitchen door he could see Meg making his sandwich, making tea, and he was seeing her for the first time in years, too. He loved Meg. He loved being a doctor. He’d risked it all, and for what?

  He was halfway through his chicken sandwich when the phone rang, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, answer it. Meg looked puzzled, but she didn’t say anything. He always answered the phone. It was just one of those things that evolve over the years; if Denis was there, he picked up the phone. But not this time.

  She waited just a fraction longer, then went out to the hallway.

  “Oh, hello, Carl,” he heard her say, and the mouthful of chicken sandwich he had just swallowed seemed to lodge itself in his throat.

  Carl didn’t tell Meg what had happened; she went to get Denis, and Carl tried to come to terms with what had gone on in here tonight. He didn’t understand why this was happening to him.

  Lloyd had shown him the glove the woman said they’d found, asked if it was his, which it wasn’t, but he had the feeling that Lloyd hadn’t believed him, and the more he denied all knowledge of it, the more he sounded, even to himself, as though he was lying. He understood why people confessed to things they hadn’t done; if saying that the glove was his would stop Lloyd looking at him the way he was looking at him, he would very probably have done so. He had never felt so confused in his life.

  The sergeant was a brisk, no-nonsense man with little time for finer feelings, and Carl could handle that; he felt at least that the sergeant believed him. But Lloyd—well, Lloyd didn’t say much, but Carl felt as though every question he did ask was loaded.

  After what seemed hours, Denis came to the phone.

  “Denis,” Carl began. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this. There’s … there’s been a break-in here. Estelle—well, she … that is, the police think she surprised the burglar, and he—” Carl took a moment. “She’s dead, Denis,” he said. “They tied her up and gagged her. She couldn’t breathe.”

  There was silence. For a moment Carl thought he’d been talking to thin air and was going to have to say it all again, but finally Denis found his voice.

  “That’s dreadful,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing anyone can say,” said Carl. “But I wondered if you could do me a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “It’s young Dexter Gibson. I’ve just had a call from his mother to say that he had an accident tonight, and she’s worried he might be concussed. Perhaps you cou
ld go and check him out for me?”

  “Of course,” said Denis.

  “She’s probably worrying about nothing, but if you could go, I’d be grateful.”

  “Of course I will. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes. Thanks. I—I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Right. Look—if there’s anything I can do, just say. I know it’s a useless thing to say, but I do mean it. I mean—don’t stay there on your own, will you? I know there’s probably somewhere else you’d rather go, but there’s a bed here for you if you’d like to stay with us. And don’t, whatever you do, worry about work. I can handle everything.”

  “Thanks, Denis.”

  Carl hung up and went back into the living room. “Sorry about that,” he said. “A patient wanted me to go out—Denis Leeward’s dealing with it.”

  Chief Inspector Lloyd looked faintly puzzled. “You don’t subscribe to one of these emergency night doctor units?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Carl. “But Mrs. Gibson cleans for us. That’s why she called me direct.”

  “Your cleaner? Does she work here or at the surgery?”

  Carl stared at him. Why on earth did he care about that? What did it have to do with the police? Or Estelle’s death? “If it’s of any consequence,” he said testily, “she works here.”

  “Fingerprints,” said Lloyd. “We need to eliminate any that have a right to be here. When did Mrs. Gibson clean here last?”

  “Oh,” said Carl, feeling foolish. “This morning, I imagine. She comes every day.”

  “If you can let us have her address? And we will need your fingerprints, too. Not tonight, obviously, but if you could come to the station tomorrow perhaps?”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

  “Oh, forget it. Now—do you think you could try to sort out what’s missing?”

  Sergeant Finch, young and fair-haired, with a crew cut that made him look like an American marine, asked Eric when he had heard the window break.

  “I’m not sure. About ten, quarter past eight. Something like that.”

  “And you went out into the garden?”

  “Yes. Like I said, I thought it was my greenhouse.”

  “I believe you have a security light that’s activated by movement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it come on when you went out, or was it already on?”

  Eric didn’t know how much Mr. Jones had actually seen; he might have told the sergeant that the light was already on. Though it went against the grain, he felt obliged to tell the truth. “It was on.”

  “So someone or something must have activated it before you went out to investigate the breaking glass?”

  Eric shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  “How long does it stay on?”

  “Three minutes, if it doesn’t detect any further movement.”

  “And how close does the movement have to be? Would movement in the Bignalls’ garden trigger it?”

  “No. It did, but she complained, of course, so I had to change the setting.”

  “She?”

  “Mrs. Bignall. Whatever I did, she complained. Anyway, now it comes on about a third of the way up the garden, I suppose. And from the side …” He thought about it. “I think it would come on if anyone got within a foot or so of the garage.”

  The young detective looked thoughtful. “So someone running diagonally from the Bignalls’ house over the wall into your garden would trigger it when he crossed your driveway,” he said, almost to himself. “But someone getting into the Bignalls’ garden from yours probably wouldn’t, because they’d probably stay near the back wall.” He looked at Eric. “Does that seem reasonable?”

  Eric agreed that in such a hypothetical situation, that would probably be the case.

  “We have a witness who saw someone leave by your gate. You were in the garden at that moment, according to him, and your light was on. But you didn’t see anything.”

  “No. I was checking out my greenhouse.”

  “Did you hear anything before that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Raised voices?”

  Eric shrugged. “I doubt if I’d notice,” he said. “That mad cow next door is always crying or yelling.” He smiled. “You move to a neighborhood like this, you’d think you’d get a bit of peace, wouldn’t you? Not with her next door, you don’t.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Since February. These two next door are always shouting—and she has the nerve to complain about me,” Eric added.

  Sergeant Finch didn’t seem too interested in his squabbles with his neighbors. “Did you hear anything later on?” he asked. “When you were checking out your greenhouse?”

  “Like what?”

  It was the sergeant’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “Running feet, maybe?”

  Eric’s policy had always been to let the police find out things on their own and to give them no help whatsoever, even when he’d been in the job. Besides, the less you told them, the quicker they went away. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “I didn’t see anything. I just checked the greenhouse and came back in.”

  “Then why did you shout to whoever it was to stop?”

  If Geoffrey Jones had more to do with his time than spy on his neighbors, Eric reflected, he wouldn’t be in this position. “Someone had broken a window or something,” he said. “I just shouted.”

  “I’m told you shouted, ‘Come back here, you little bugger,’ ” said Finch. “That isn’t just shouting, Mr. Watson. That’s shouting at someone.”

  “Buggers,” said Eric. “Plural. It was kids breaking bottles against the wall, I thought. And nothing scares them off more than inviting them to come back and talk to you.”

  “And you didn’t notice the Bignalls’ French window standing open though the house was in darkness?”

  “No.”

  “If you didn’t see someone leaving your garden, didn’t you wonder what had made your security light come on?”

  “No.”

  Finch sighed. “For someone who was a cop and security conscious, you seem to have been very uninterested in what was going on.”

  “Wasn’t my problem,” said Eric. “My property was intact. I’m not in the job anymore. And everyone round here’s security conscious. Why do you think Bignall had his gates locked? There have been burglaries round here, Sergeant. Just like tonight.”

  “To be honest, I was wondering why he bothered to lock his gates, since it’s so easy to get on to his property via yours. And you don’t keep your gates locked.”

  “I do if I’m leaving the house empty. A bloke up the road had his house broken into a month ago and the thieves backed a bloody van up his driveway and filled it up with his belongings. We don’t have to make it that easy for them.”

  “And yet,” said Finch, “you hear a window breaking, come out to find your security light on, and don’t notice an intruder in your own garden?”

  “I’m sorry if I don’t come up to scratch as a witness, Sergeant.”

  “And you don’t notice that your neighbor’s French window is wide open with the rain getting in?”

  “I’m not the bloody neighborhood watch! As long as it isn’t me, I don’t give a bugger who’s been turned over.”

  “So you did see something.”

  Eric shook his head and smiled. “All right, yes. I saw the French window open, and I just didn’t give a shit. But I saw nothing else, and if you sit here until hell freezes over, you can’t make me say I did. I’ve got better things to do with my time than sit around the bloody magistrates’ court waiting to give evidence against some kid who’ll get off with a smacked wrist anyway. My time’s money.”

  “What do you do for a living these days?”

  “I’m a photographer. I’ve got a studio in Welchester.”

  The sergeant looked interested. “What got you into that?”

  “I w
as a police photographer, but they civilianized the job fourteen years ago. I didn’t fancy being back in the front line, so I left and started up a business.”

  “You’ve done all right, then?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “The thing is, this’ll be going further than the magistrates’ court.” Finch was watching him closely as he spoke. “This is manslaughter, at the least.”

  “Manslaughter?” Eric repeated. “I thought it was just a break-in. Who’s been killed?”

  He could see the sergeant try to work out if it was genuine surprise or not, but it didn’t really matter what he thought. With the police, all that mattered was what you said. And that only mattered if they’d cautioned you.

  “I’m sorry,” Finch said. “I thought someone would have told you. Mrs. Bignall was found dead.”

  “Bloody hell.” He hadn’t known there was anyone at home.

  “Does her death change your mind about what you saw?”

  Eric shook his head. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “How can it change my mind?”

  “Thanks very much,” said Judy, who could have walked home by the time Marianne finally stopped flapping and left the theater.

  During the day it was actually quicker to walk, especially since there was a shortcut through the park. Because not only couldn’t cars use the shortcut, but the one-way system meant it was necessary to drive for a considerable distance in the opposite direction before finally making it into the center of Malworth where she lived.

  “It’s very good of you to give me a lift home,” she said. “It’s taking you out of your way.”

  “Oh, no trouble at all, darling!” Marianne started the car, and the windshield wipers cut two semicircles in the fine spray of rain on the glass. “We couldn’t have you walking home through the park, not at this time of the night—I don’t care if you are a police officer. A warrant card isn’t a suit of armor, and there are some very funny characters about. And you couldn’t really run, could you, darling? Not in your condition.” She backed carefully out of the parking space, and that maneuver completed, the brief silence was over. But when she spoke, it was about neither of the things Judy expected to be exercising Marianne’s mind.