Barking Mad

by Ted Tayler

  “Patrick Boddington must have had plenty to say, guv,” said Lydia.

  “Luke may have followed your approach and invited Patrick to tell him his life story,” said Gus, “in which case we’ll be waiting for him all evening. I rarely ask this, but would you mind making me a coffee?”

  “Of course not, guv,” said Lydia. She dropped her things on her desk and went to the restroom. Gus heard the Gaggia fire up and waited patiently for Lydia to return.

  “There we are guv. One black coffee without sugar. Thirsty, were you?”

  “Not at all, I just needed something to steady my nerves after you overtook that tractor when we neared Chippenham Golf Club.”

  “You were away with the fairies, I didn’t think you noticed,” said Lydia. “I had plenty of room.”

  “You may have had plenty of room on your side. I practically sat in the cab with the tractor driver.”

  The twinkle in her boss’s eye told Lydia it was another gentle leg-pull. She returned to her desk and drank her cup of coffee. They both heard the lift descend to the ground floor.

  “The wanderer returns,” said Gus.

  Luke Sherman strolled into the office.

  “Oh, you’re back. How did it go?” Luke asked.

  “We were here first,” said Gus, “we’ll ask the questions.”

  “Patrick Boddington reminded me of Quentin Crisp, guv,” said Luke, “did you ever see The Naked Civil Servant?”

  “On one of my earlier cases, yes, Luke. I was on patrol in a Panda car in the countryside on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The gentleman in question was in the back of a Rolls Royce with an adolescent farm girl.”

  “I think we’ve got crossed wires, guv,” said Luke.

  “More than likely, Luke. Let’s leave Patrick’s appearance until later. What I want to know is, what they said during the two phone calls he shared with Mark Malone either side of midnight.”

  “Patrick couldn’t recall, guv,” said Luke.

  “Rubbish,” said Gus, “Jenny Malone remembered every word. As she said, it was the last time they spoke. She received that call six hours before Mark died. Neighbours heard the gunshots at around twelve thirty-five, a mere thirty minutes after Patrick and Mark conducted a seven-minute conversation.”

  “Patrick Boddington is hiding something, guv,” said Lydia.

  “Did he have a key to Mark’s apartment in Marlborough Lane?” asked Gus.

  “I didn’t ask, guv. There wasn’t any suggestion that anyone other than Mark had a key in the murder file. What are you driving at?”

  “Lydia and I will update the Freeman Files before we leave tonight,” said Gus. “I suggest you do the same. Tomorrow morning we’ll try to create a meaningful cast of characters and actions for the night Mark died. There are several unanswered questions, and Patrick Boddington may hold the key to several of them. Before you go home tonight, Luke, phone Boddington and tell him, we need to speak with him again. Don’t get fobbed off with excuses. We’ll call Manvers Street and borrow an interview room if he gets obstructive. Boddington spends his life spinning stories to vulnerable and impressionable young men. I suspect he thought he could deceive you too, Luke. No matter, he’ll have me to face tomorrow, under caution, if necessary.”

  “Yes, guv,” said Luke.

  Gus, Luke, and Lydia spent the rest of the afternoon hard at work updating the Freeman Files. At five o’clock, Gus watched the others leave and sat in the office pondering what the day had delivered. What could Mark Malone have been doing that cost him his life? Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise his mother was unaware of anything suspicious. They weren’t close. People like Damian Hartley-Cole and Julian Drummond were acquaintances, not Mark’s bosom buddies. Lydia stressed that his mobile phone held nothing out of the ordinary. Gus checked the files for the detailed breakdown that the Hub had provided.

  Lydia was right. None of the contacts felt out of place, and the pet shop contacts were what you would expect. Mark’s link to the dog show world was more colourful, but even there the phone numbers were for event organisers, fellow owners, and a handful of breeders.

  Gus wondered if he’d ever had eighty friends during his lifetime. His home phone had less than two dozen numbers listed, and if he was honest, several of those were only there out of habit. They were old faces from Salisbury, who he worked with that had retired. Gus wondered whether the numbers were even still valid. Four of the Detective Sergeants he had in his contacts list played golf. They probably moved to Spain without giving him their new number. Gus was unlikely to call them to find out.

  If there was a burner phone, then the potential few numbers it had contained were crucial to solving this case. Boddington was their best hope of finding that phone if it still existed.

  Gus decided he would not make headway until they spoke to Patrick Boddington again in the morning. It was time to head home. As he descended to the ground floor, he suddenly remembered that the Reverend was calling on him this evening. Gus wondered what news Clemency Bentham brought from Canada. The drive home to Urchfont dragged more than usual. The closer he got to his house, the more he realised that if Clemency wanted to tell him in person, it couldn’t be good news.

  Once he was inside the bungalow, Gus faced another dilemma. When would Clemency arrive? Had she eaten? Gus called her.

  Clemency answered on the second ring. The Reverend sounded out of breath,

  “I’m on my way,” she said, “I’ve stopped cycling, so I’m not breaking the law. I’ll be with you in two minutes.”

  “Are you hungry?” asked Gus, “I’ve just got home from work, and I haven’t eaten.”

  “I’m ravenous,” said Clemency, “but I’m on a diet, and this cycling lark is to help get me fitter and lose weight. It will undo the good I’ve done since I started on Monday if I tuck into something this evening.”

  “I’ll wait until we’ve had our face-to-face then,” said Gus, “if it gets too late to cook, I’ll order a takeaway. Don’t worry. I won’t flick through the various menu options while you’re here. I hate watching people drool.”

  Gus watched from his lounge window after he’d ended the call. Two minutes later, on cue, a large lady on a bicycle sailed through the gateway. The warm June weather had encouraged the Reverend to wear a straw hat. It kept the sun off her rosy cheeks but looked an odd combination with her three-quarter sleeved paisley blouse, dog-collar, and black trousers.

  Gus opened the door.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, “come indoors.”

  Clemency removed her straw hat and fanned herself.

  “Gosh, I have never felt so unfit. I’ve always been a big girl, but since I moved to Urchfont, I seem to pile on the pounds. To grow my own fruit and vegetables was a wonderful idea at the time; now I’m not so sure.”

  Gus smiled. They were on familiar territory.

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “When you grow them yourself, they taste better than the bought variety. Bert Penman gives us so much advice on what to grow, and when, and encourages us to plant far more than we would ever need. Then, when the crops are ready to harvest, we feel duty-bound to get them out of the ground and eat them while they’re still at their best. I fell into that trap the first year I moved here. Tess had a fuller figure too, and she blamed me for the extra weight she acquired. I was too much of a gentleman to pass comment. I just altered my planting regime to include more salad items and fewer potatoes for next season.”

  “Perhaps you can dig out that planting regime for me,” said Clemency, “it could prove beneficial.”

  “Come through to the lounge, and make yourself comfortable,” said Gus. “Can I get you a drink, Clemency? Non-alcoholic, if you prefer.”

  Clemency sank into one of Gus’s comfortable chairs.

  “I spy an excellent ten-year-old malt on the side table, Gus,” said the Reverend, “I know I shouldn’t, but the news I bring is awful.”

  “You said in your note that Bert was OK, b
ut he had received dreadful news from Canada. What’s happened?”

  “There’s been a terrible road accident. Bert’s son, David, his wife, Lilian and their daughter, Virginia and her family were in a people carrier struck by a freight train on a grade-crossing. That’s a level-crossing to you and me. All six passengers in the Peugeot died.”

  Gus stood up and walked across to his drinks cabinet. The Reverend was right; this was dreadful news. It was hard enough for him to take in, let alone Bert, what a thing to have to cope with at eighty-five. Nobody should have to bury a child, let alone an entire family wiped out in a split second.

  “How old was David?” asked Gus as he handed Clemency a generous shot of McCallan’s.

  “He would have been sixty in August. Lilian was fifty-eight. Virginia was their youngest child, she was thirty-four, and her husband Logan Brown was thirty-eight. Their children, Nathan, and Olivia were thirteen and eleven. It’s too horrible to contemplate.”

  “It’s times like this that test your faith, I imagine,” said Gus.

  “No, my faith remains solid,” said Clemency, “there’s nothing I can do for those poor souls four thousand miles away, except pray for them. My role is to help Bert get through this ordeal. He feels so helpless because he knows he can’t fly out for the funeral.”

  “Where did they live?” asked Gus.

  “Saskatoon, in Saskatchewan,” said Clemency, “the biggest city in the Province.”

  “It’s easy to forget how vast Canada is,” said Gus, “when did the accident happen? Do they know what caused it?”

  “It happened on Monday evening, at around nine thirty-five,” said Clemency. “The family was travelling home from a school function. The level-crossing gates lowered, preventing the Peugeot from crossing, and allowed an eastbound freight train to continue its route. After the train had passed, the gates rose, allowing David to cross. As he drove over the tracks, a second train, heading westward, struck the Peugeot. The people carrier split in two, and the rear half got dragged a further eight hundred metres. The front half ended up on an embankment fifty metres from the level-crossing. Both front-seat passengers died instantly, the two adults and two children in the rear died of their injuries before they could reach the hospital.”

  “There have been so many tragic accidents on level-crossings over the years,” said Gus, “surely, safety measures are in place to prevent this sort of tragedy?”

  “Investigations are ongoing,” said Clemency. “The level-crossing gates might have malfunctioned, but locals told the police that kids were always messing with the gates late in the evening. There were no eyewitnesses to support that theory. Dusk doesn’t arrive for another thirty minutes. Few locals were outside their properties. It may have been a tragic accident.”

  “We must rally round,” said Gus, “as we did when Frank North died. This village has an unbreakable community spirit. I know you’ll find plenty of people offering to help Bert.”

  “That will not be the problem, and you know it, Gus,” said Clemency. “It’s getting the old buzzard to accept help in the first place.”

  “You’ve got him eating out of your hand, Clemency. I know I can rely on you. If there’s anything I can do, just ask. My time is limited, but Bert is a diamond we need to treasure.”

  “I suppose I’d better get back on my trusty steed and cycle home,” said Clemency. She plonked the straw hat on her head and levered her frame out of Gus’s comfy chair.

  “I should advise you against cycling home, madam. You could be liable to a fine of one thousand pounds if stopped, whether you were on the road or the pavement.”

  Clemency looked Gus straight in the eye.

  “Is this how you get so many women to stay here, Gus? Ply them with drink and then persuade them that sleeping under your roof is better than a thousand pound fine? I’ll be OK, and there’s more of me to absorb that whisky than for you.”

  “I must correct you there, Clemency,” said Gus. “First, I like to think it’s my boyish charm that attracts them, but second, several variables can affect how quickly someone feels the effect of alcohol. How much body fat versus water their bodies comprise plays a major role. That’s because alcohol is soluble in water but moves slowly through fat. When you drink alcohol, it distributes itself in tissues rich in water like a muscle, instead of those rich in fat. Pour alcohol into water, and it goes straight into solution. If you pour it into fat, the two will separate.”

  “You’re no fun, Gus,” said Clemency. “How many people have you lectured on science like this over the years?”

  “Too many,” said Gus, collecting his car keys. “Women reach a higher blood alcohol concentration than a man of the same weight when they both drink the same amount of alcohol. Women’s bodies tend to have more fat and less water than men’s. Now, if you accept that you lost the argument, I’ll run you home. I’ve got bungee straps in the garden shed we can use to secure your bike to the boot of my car.”

  With Clemency seated in the passenger seat of the Focus, Gus secured her bone-shaker safely to the back and made ready to drive her home. They were no sooner in the lane than Clemency had a thought.

  “You had a decent measure of that McCallan’s too,” she cried, “what if you get stopped?”

  “We can always turn around, and I’ll make up the spare bed,” said Gus.

  “Is there a lock on the door?”

  “There is, so there’s no danger of you getting into my room. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “A sense of humour can be an attractive quality in a man,” said Clemency, thumping Gus on the arm. “I’ll revise my opinion; you don’t seduce your women with drink, you’re just a lovely chap.”

  “Have you ever, you know?”

  “I had a life before I got ordained, you know.”

  “Was there nobody serious?”

  “Not really, I had several boyfriends as a teenager in Dorchester and up at Oxford University. After I completed my degree, I started work in the City as a data scientist. It was far less interesting than it sounds. All I ever seemed to do was work, eat, and sleep. I woke up one morning and thought there had to be more to life.”

  “We’ve all thought that,” said Gus, “and here we are at the vicarage,”

  Gus got out and removed Clemency’s bicycle from the back of the car. She stood on the pavement with her hands on the handlebars.

  “I was twenty-eight when I saw the light,” she said. “Since I donned the dog-collar, I’ve loved every minute. My congregation make it so enjoyable. The only downside is that I haven’t been on a date for five years. The collar scares them off, I suppose.”

  “What’s next for Bert?” asked Gus, moving back to the driver’s door. “When’s the funeral?”

  “Friday the fifteenth,” said Clemency, “I’ll stay with Bert for as long as I can that day. Irene North promised to help too. She asked me about Bert’s eldest grandchild. Irene wondered what happened to him.”

  “I recall Bert telling me that David and his wife had two children. He said they were doing well in their careers. Did you ask Bert about the other child?”

  “The son’s name is Brett, and he’s thirty-six. Bert told me Brett’s a veterinary physician. He was married, but that ended three years ago. They didn’t have children. It must be awful for Brett to be the only family member left. Bert’s daughter, Margaret, who lives in New Zealand, will attend the funeral with her family. After that, Bert is hoping they’ll fit in a visit to the UK. You know Bert; he says he hopes they get here before he’s called to meet his maker.”

  “So do I,” said Gus, “we need Bert to hang around for much longer yet.”

  “I’d better let you get off home. The neighbours will talk. Thanks for the lift. Can I call you early next week, to see when you’re available to chat with Bert, to give him something else to occupy his mind?”

  “Leave a message if I’m not there. It’s never easy to make firm arrangements when a case is throwing up peculiar lines
of enquiry.”

  “Goodnight, Gus. God bless.”

  The Reverend wheeled her bike up the path to the vicarage door, and Gus drove back to the bungalow. As he stood on the doorstep and lifted the key to the lock, he remembered he still hadn’t eaten. Gus fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and ordered chicken curry with boiled rice from the nearest Chinese restaurant. If he weren’t careful, he’d be putting on weight like the Reverend, but after learning Bert’s terrible news, he needed a drink. It wasn’t wise to do that on an empty stomach, regardless of how much water and body fat there was in his system. That was his excuse, and he was sticking to it.

  CHAPTER 8

  Friday, 8th June 2018 - Devizes

  Gus was awake at seven o’clock. He was too old for late-night takeaways and several glasses of Scotch. The brief walk to the shower was painful, and he stayed there far longer than usual to clear his head.

  That was the actual problem, not the spicy food, and hard liquor. It was thinking of Bert Penman’s family and trying to make sense of Mark Malone’s mystery activity. Even after he’d finished his second cup of black coffee before risking the drive to work, he still hadn’t come up with any answers.

  Gus parked the Focus in its usual spot and rode up in the lift to the CRT office. He was first to arrive. The clock on the wall said it was twenty minutes to nine. The cast of characters for the night Mark Malone died should be his priority.

  Gus cleared a whiteboard and added the names he could confirm had contacted Mark, either by text or phone.

  Jenny Malone, Julian Drummond, Patrick Boddington.

  Mark had contact with Damian Hartley-Cole besides the other three.

  Gus wasn’t able to put names to the four men who attended the sex party. Did it matter? He didn’t believe they had anything to do with Mark’s death.

  So, who else might they need to identify? The driver of the black SUV. Was he alone, or did that car carry several passengers?

  What about the other BMW? A similar problem.