I took a deep steadying breath. “Better go and make that phone call then, before I lose my nerve.”
He smiled. “You’re a game girl, I’ll give you that.” The smile faded and for a moment, he looked very solemn. He glanced down at his watch, frowned, then said in a low mumble, “I’m really very sorry.”
“Sorry? What for?”
For a moment, he looked blank, like old Mrs Simmons had that morning in the salon, when she’d lost track of the conversation in mid-sentence. “Sorry – sorry for sacking you, of course,’ he said, recovering himself quickly. “You were one of the best barmaids I’ve ever had.”
“That wasn’t what you said when you let me go,” I pointed out, then wished I hadn’t as his expression darkened.
“I’ve already explained about that,” he said sharply.
“Yeah, you have. Sorry,” I passed a hand in front of my eyes. “I guess I’m more strung up than I realised. I must admit, I feel – it’s very hot in here, isn’t it? Do you think you could open a window?”
“I’m afraid not. They don’t open. Haven’t done for hundreds of years, I should think. Look, you sit there and relax while I call Gerald. I won’t be a minute.”
Of course, I didn’t relax. How could I? But I felt better knowing Gerald could only get in through the back door, and that he’d have to get past Donald first. But what if he attacked Donald? Gerald was twice his size and desperate. Poor Donald wouldn’t stand a chance.
I took my phone from my pocket and placed it on the bar, behind a charity collection tin. Donald had said I was a game girl. A weird expression that made me sound a bit like a pheasant. But my gameness, if there was such a word, was just a front. I felt as wobbly as a kitten on a tightrope. And just about as weak. In fact, at the moment, I doubted if I could have stood up if I’d wanted to. And it was getting hotter in here by the minute.
I thought about ringing Will, as my nerve began to fail me again, and wished I hadn't lied to him about where I was.
But before I could reach for my phone, Donald came back. I slumped back in the chair, as the succession of disturbed nights, coupled with the realisation that I was probably doing the most dangerous – and foolish – thing I’d ever done in my life, left me feeling utterly drained.
“Is he coming?” I asked.
But instead of answering my question, Donald looked down at his watch yet again. “It’s taking longer than I thought,” he murmured. “Although you’re looking pretty sleepy now. I should have given you a larger dose.”
“What?” I sat up straight, my heart thumping, my head swimming, my tongue feeling like it was suddenly two sizes too big for my mouth. “What are you talking about? What do you mean by a larger dose? A larger dose of what?”
“I mean a larger dose than the one I gave Doreen,” he said, still in the same pleasant, conversational tone of voice that made it almost impossible to take in the full horror of his words. “Of course, you’re that much younger than she was, so I suppose that would make a difference. I’m an idiot. I should have taken that into consideration.”
“I – I don’t understand,” I said weakly. “What are you talking about?”
“The dose of sleeping draught I gave you was the same as the one I gave Doreen before I killed her. But never mind, it looks as if it’s working now. There’s no rush. I can wait.”
As he was speaking, his usually bland, expressionless face was transformed by a hideous smile.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I stared up at him in horror. Donald? Dippy Donald, the dull as ditchwater landlord who always faded into the background, was a murderer? Maybe even a double murderer? Surely not. It was far more likely that he was one of those sad people who confessed to crimes they hadn’t committed in a bid to get attention. He couldn’t even kill a spider and only last week had spent ages trying to persuade one that had been lurking in the bar to climb on to a piece of paper, before carrying it safely outside.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You wouldn’t—”
“Have the nerve? Is that what you think?” There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. Wild. A little manic. It sent a shiver down my spine. “Which politician was it who said ‘never underestimate the determination of a quiet man’? Well, whoever it was, that’s me. The quiet man who is very, very determined.”
“You’re saying you killed Doreen? What about Marjorie? Was that down to you as well?” I asked. “But you said – you said it was Gerald. So how? Why?”
He still had the same scary smile on his face. “I suppose I may as well tell you. It’s not like you’re going anywhere. So you might as well listen to a nice bedtime story while you’re falling asleep. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time, there was a nosy old witch, who went around the village making trouble for everyone she met. But one day, she went too far and made trouble for the wrong person. Because that person was very clever and he had a cunning plan.”
“You’re mad,” I whispered. How stupid was I? Naive, gullible and stupid, stupid, stupid. I glanced across at my phone, just out of my reach.
“Damn right I was mad,” he said. “Hopping mad. Time was critical, you see. I had just ten weeks, that’s how long Joyce’s cruise was, to put my plan in hand. And it would have worked, too, if it hadn’t been for that nosy old bat. And if Gerald had held his nerve. But never mind. A good plan allows for the unexpected. It can still work.”
“Gerald? Then he wasn’t the murderer?”
Donald’s laugh was no less manic the second time. “He’s a lily-livered fool who loses his nerve at the first sign of trouble.”
“Whereas you…?”
“Whereas I am clever and resourceful and take my chances when they present themselves. Marjorie Hampton was about to ruin everything I’d worked for. Interfering old baggage. She’d found out Gerald was getting inside information from his contact in the planning department—”
“Doreen Spetchley,” I said before I could stop myself. So, Liam had been right about that. “His contact was Doreen Spetchley, wasn’t it? So they weren’t having an affair?”
Donald grinned. “Well, let’s put it this way. She thought they were. The silly creature actually believed him when he said that the money was for their new life together. Pathetic.” He tossed back the last of his drink. “Anyway, she’d given Gerald the nod a few times. People in the planning office get to hear about upcoming deals long before they get as far as making a formal application for planning permission, and Gerald has had some nice little earners from that source over the years, I can tell you. And I’d just persuaded him to let me in on it, when Marjorie got wind of it and was threatening to ruin everything. So I got Gerald to arrange a meeting with her up at Pendle Knoll that afternoon.”
I didn’t want to hear any more. But, on the other hand, I didn’t want him to stop talking either. Because I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen when he did.
“So it was Gerald who Marjorie was going to meet, after she’d seen John Manning,” I said. “Gerald who’d got her dander up, as she’d put it?”
“Exactly. Only, of course, I was going to keep the appointment instead of him. He’d never have had the nerve to do what had to be done, even though he was more than happy to take his cut of the proceeds. Whereas I not only had the nerve, but the resourcefulness too. I’d taken this,” he leant down by the fireplace and picked up a large, heavy iron poker. I shrank away as he waved it at me, “And planned for her to have a little accident. But when I passed the Manning farm, and heard her and John Manning going at it hammer and tongs, I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d been wondering what to do with her body and suddenly, John Manning had handed me the solution on a plate – or, to be strictly accurate, a freezer.”
“Poor, poor Marjorie.” I gave a little whimper as the ever-present image of Marjorie, face down in that freezer, flashed into my mind. “But how did you get her body to the farm shop? Surely someone would have seen
you?”
“Stupid, interfering Majorie, more like,” he snorted. “John Manning had run up a pretty big bar bill and, a couple of weeks earlier, had given me a spare key to the farm shop and told me to go in any time I was passing and help myself to anything I could find in the freezers up there in lieu of payment. I’d been steadily emptying that freezer of its contents for weeks.”
I remembered Will wondering how, when there was scarcely enough money to pay for feed for the livestock, his father had a seemingly endless supply of whisky. Now, of course, I knew.
“Win, win,” Donald chuckled. “I got unlimited free meat for the restaurant and he got a supply of whisky. Of course, it was only some cheap, duty free rubbish that I wouldn’t dare sell over the bar, but John wasn’t bothered what he drank. That was yet another little scam of Gerald’s, you know. Only this time with Shane Freeman.”
“Duty free alcohol and cigarettes. That, according to you, Gerald blackmailed you into selling in the pub for a cut in the profits.”
He laughed. “It makes for a convincing story, doesn’t it? That was something else Marjorie was kicking up about, you know. Frightened Gerald to death when she said she was going to the police. As for Shane Freeman, the pathetic idiot was going frantic. According to Gerald, he actually went to her house to beg her not to say anything. But luckily, I got to her first.”
That would have been when Amy’s mum saw Shane, I supposed. He never was the brightest button in the box. But he was no murderer. Unlike the man standing in front of me.
“I was in Pendle Drove, which as you know goes past the Manning farm,” he went on. “We’d been going to meet at the old stone barn to ‘discuss’ the proposed new development that Gerald and I were involved in. Somehow Marjorie had found out about it and was threatening to make a fuss. As you know, the drove leads directly to the site and Gerald was pretty sure Planning would agree to it being made into an access road for the new development.”
“But that’s a public bridle way,” I protested. “They can’t do that. Besides, that would bring all the traffic for the site past the school. The council would never pass it.”
“You reckon?” He gave a short laugh. “You’d be surprised what can be achieved with a bit of judicious palm-greasing. Besides, nobody used the drove any more, particularly since Gerald drove his 4x4 up and down there a few times and turned it into a quagmire. It’s totally impassable in places now. I have to give him due credit there. It was quite a clever move. Keeps the nosy parkers away. Apart from one, of course. She wanted to meet Gerald in the drove, intending to have a go at him about the terrible state John Manning had got it into, and insisting that the council force him to restore it. She was still ranting on about it when I met up with her after she’d finished lecturing Manning.”
“You met her there, intending to kill her?’ I shuddered. How cold-blooded could you get?
He nodded. “That was my original plan. But when I heard them rowing, I had a better idea. I told her that Gerald was involved in the plan to turn the drove into an access road, that it was Gerald who had trashed the drove and that John Manning had found out about it. She swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I went on to say that Manning had agreed to meet us at the farm shop, where he’d give us evidence that would implicate Gerald. I was able to show her the key that Manning had given me and of course, she agreed to come to the farm shop with me like a shot.”
“Poor, poor Marjorie,” I murmured again. My brain had frozen. It was the only thing I could think of. Poor, poor Marjorie.
“Poor Marjorie, my eye,” he snorted. “Interfering old cow, more like it. I’d used every penny I had to buy that land. When it goes through, which will be any day now they’ve got the access sorted, I’ll be away from this miserable place and my miserable wife faster than you can say knife. Have you any idea what it’s like to be married to someone like Joyce? She’s the one with the money, you know, and there isn’t a day goes by where she doesn’t remind me of that fact.”
“But you could have just left her. There’s no need to—” I looked at him, my eyes full of horror. “Oh God, you haven’t killed her as well, have you?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But it may well come to that. Now I’m getting the hang of it, as it were. Drugs are wonderful, don’t you agree? Doreen just went to sleep and didn’t know a thing about it. It was all very humane.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. There was no doubt the man was as mad as a box of frogs, but he was clever with it. He’d played the part of an unremarkable, grey man to perfection. While all the time, inside, he was a cold, calculating monster who’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
“Marjorie walked into that farm shop like a lamb to the slaughter,” he chortled. “Get it? Lamb to the slaughter? And you’ll never guess what I hit her with?”
“The poker?” I said, unable to take my eyes off it.
“Wrong. It made me laugh when I heard about the amount of time the police spent looking for the murder weapon. Do you remember that brilliant Roald Dahl story where this woman murdered her husband by hitting him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb, which she then cooked and served up to the policemen who came to investigate? It would have been perfect,” Donald went on. “I’d planned to tip her into one of the freezers and, chances are, it would have been months, maybe even years before she was found. But, unfortunately, someone came along and tried the door, just at the wrong time.”
“That would have been John,” I said, but he wasn’t listening.
“I had to leave her there, half in, half out, and leg it.” He laughed again, like he was having the time of his life. “Do you get it, Katie? I said ‘leg it’. And I did just that. Legged it with the leg of lamb I’d bashed her over the head with, and cooked it, here in the pub. Just like in that story. Went down a treat as the next day’s special, if you remember. The pub was heaving.”
I felt sick as I remembered the night after Marjorie’s body had been found. How busy the bar and restaurant had been. How the lovely smell of roast lamb had filled the entire pub.
I didn’t want to think about roast lamb any more. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat it again, even if I got out of here alive. Time, I reckoned, for a change of subject.
“But why did you kill Doreen? What did she ever do to you?”
“That was Gerald’s fault. I told you he was a lily-livered fool, didn’t I? He’d been keeping her sweet for years and, over that time, she’d come up with some pretty good stuff for him, including that supermarket development in Dintscombe. He made a right killing there. I overheard him boasting about it one night and told him that I wanted in on the next one, or else. Well, he caved in, of course, and this one, that I was telling you about behind the old barn, that’s going to be huge and earn us both enough shedloads of money. Enough to take me a long, long way away from here. Trouble was, Doreen was getting cold feet and told Gerald she wanted out. Gerald lost his head and tried to break things off with her, stupid idiot. Because that just made her more determined than ever to blow the whistle.” He broke off and looked at me closely. “How come you’re still awake? Maybe you should have another glass of malt. One for the road, as it were.”
“N-not really awake,” I slurred, my words stumbling over each other. “V-very s-sleepy.”
“Thank God for that. Because I’m afraid, my dear, story time is almost over. The wicked witch is dead. So, too, the ugly old stepsister. And, any day now, I shall be living happily ever after. While you, I’m afraid…”
“Wh-what are you going to do with me?” I managed to ask. “Not… farm shop freezers. Still… still c-crawling with police.”
“Didn’t I say I had it all planned? This pub has a very old cellar with a nice old-fashioned dirt floor. How convenient is that? And no one will come looking for you here. Particularly as you told the boyfriend you were never here.”
“D – don’t like s-spiders,” I managed to say, my leaden eyelids closing, as I sl
id down in the chair.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“That’s it.” He lunged forward, grabbed my arm and peered closely at me. “You’re looking nice and sleepy now. Don’t fight it, Katie. It’ll be easier—”
He didn’t get any further. That’s because it’s a bit difficult to talk when you’re suddenly face down on the floor, with one arm twisted behind you and a knee in the small of your back.
“What a pity you didn’t want to see my CV when I came to work for you,” I said, a little breathlessly. “You’d have seen that I learnt judo at college. In fact, I was actually quite good at it and competed at county level. Of course, I’m a bit of of practice now, but can still do the moves when I have to.”
Another thing I forgot to mention was that my Media Studies course had included a drama module, and one of the things we’d been taught was how to make it look like you’re drinking when you’re not. Useful when you’re on stage and don’t want to splutter cold tea over your fellow actors.
I’d used the trick to pretend I was drinking the malt whisky Donald poured for me, although I didn’t think Sparky, the dusty old spider plant on the counter behind me, would ever recover from being drowned in Donald’s finest malt whisky. That first sip had tasted so awful I couldn’t bear to drink any more, but hadn’t wanted to hurt Donald’s feelings by saying so.
Weird to think that small politeness may well have saved my life. He must have put enough in to knock out a horse, as the tiny amount I’d drunk had begun to affect me, although I had, of course, exaggerated my symptoms when I began to suspect what he was up to, in the hope that it would put him off guard.
And it had worked beautifully. Except for one small thing. What the hell did I do now? Ok, Donald couldn’t move. But neither could I.
My phone was on the counter, tucked away behind the spider plant. I’d like to have said I’d had my suspicions about Donald right from the start and had put it there, left on record, in the hope that he would incriminate himself. Nothing so perceptive, I’m afraid. I left it there when I thought he was going to spill the beans on Gerald. After the trouble I’d had trying to remember who’d said what at the Parish Council meeting the other night, I hadn’t wanted to trust to my memory. Hence the recording, which was still going.
Murder Served Cold Page 23