by Frank Smith
‘I don’t claim anything,’ the girl broke in angrily. ‘I was there at the hospital getting sewn up.’ She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a six-inch long gash, and marks still red where stitches had been. ‘See? You ask them at the hospital. They’ll tell you. Sat there half the bloody night bleeding all over the floor before they got round to me. Had the stitches out yesterday.’
‘I see,’ said Paget. ‘That looks like a knife wound to me. How did that happen?’
The girl shrugged. ‘Don’t remember,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly.
‘Was anyone else injured at the same time? Were there any witnesses to what happened?’
‘Like I said, I don’t remember.’
Paget turned to Tregalles. ‘Check with the hospital and see if they can verify that Miss Tyler was there last Wednesday evening. They should have a record of the time she was booked in. Meanwhile,’ he continued as Tregalles left the room, ‘regardless of where you were last Wednesday, Chloe, let’s talk about the rest of the burglaries, beginning with the one in Dunbar Road.’
Eighteen
Thursday, March 12
Almost everything they found in Chloe’s squat in the basement of a boarded-up warehouse on King George Way, together with the clothes she was wearing at the time of her arrest, was turned over to Forensic for examination.
The girl had steadfastly denied taking part in any of the burglaries, and yet Paget had found her responses revealing as he went through each location. While she denied knowing anything about the burglary on Dunbar Road, she did so in an almost offhanded way, a programmed response by someone well-versed in the judicial system: deny everything in the hope that the police wouldn’t find enough evidence to make the charges stick. But when Paget moved on to the one in Abbey Road and the rest, Chloe became quite agitated and vehement in her denials.
‘I don’t even know where some of those streets are, so don’t think you’re going to pin those jobs on me! And I don’t know anything about any murder, either.’
Despite her record, Paget was inclined to believe her. He’d checked the list of stolen items against those found among the girl’s possessions in the squat, and while much of the stuff had probably been stolen at one time or another, the only items that matched his list were the brooches and pendants taken from the house in Dunbar Road. Not a single item listed as missing from the rest of the homes could be found. And the hospital records confirmed Chloe’s story about having the deep cut on her arm attended to on the night Laura Holbrook was killed.
To say that Paget was surprised when Joshua Davenport was brought in would be an understatement. Terry Coleman had described the man reasonably well, but the image conjured up in Paget’s mind was quite different from that of the man who sat across the table from him now.
Davenport had form, petty stuff, most of it drug-related in one way or another. Four convictions for possession, two acquittals, one conviction for theft, and one for being drunk and disorderly in a public place.
‘Hardly the record you’d expect of a twenty-eight-year-old Cambridge man, who has a PhD after his name,’ Ormside observed as he handed the sheet to Paget. ‘Still, takes all sorts, I suppose. Seems like he was coming off an all-night session with some friends when we picked him up, though God knows how someone like him has friends among the Gypsies. He’s not what you might call fit, but the doc says we can question him.’
Davenport was tall and thin to the point of emaciation. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes pale and watery. He looked as if he had a cold, his nose was red, and he dabbed at it as unobtrusively as possible from time to time with a wad of tissues concealed in his hand. But his hair was neatly combed, and most surprising to Paget was the fact that Davenport was wearing a suit, white shirt and tie. The suit was old and threadbare, and the sleeves of the jacket were too short for his long arms, but the material was clearly of excellent quality. The shirt was yellowing with age, and the tie was fraying at the ends, but the overall impression was of someone who was doing his best to maintain a semblance of dignity despite being down on his luck.
He sat upright in the chair, feet tucked beneath it, perhaps trying to hide the fact that he was wearing worn and ragged trainers rather than shoes. He watched calmly, waiting until Ormside, sitting in for Tregalles, had the recorder up and running before he said, ‘May I say something for the record before we begin?’
‘Of course, bearing in mind that you are still under caution,’ Paget told him.
Davenport nodded perfunctorily. ‘As I’m sure you know, having read my file, I am well acquainted with the procedure, so there is no need to waste time on that. Also, I do not wish to have a solicitor present. It’s been my experience that most of them are neither interested in someone like me, nor are they particularly competent, and I find I spend less time in confinement when I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court, than I do if they try to defend me. So, if it’s all right with you, can we cut to the chase, as they say?’
He paused to eye Paget speculatively before continuing. ‘I take it you have been talking to Chloe, since she is the only one who knew where I would be. Tell me, did she do another job?’
‘I can tell you that Miss Tyler and another young person are helping us with our enquiries into certain matters,’ Paget said neutrally.
‘Another young person?’ Davenport looked pained. ‘It must be young Coleman,’ he said with an air of resignation, then closed his eyes and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Oh, Chloe,’ he said softly as if speaking to the girl herself, ‘will you never learn?’
Paget had the feeling that control of the interview was beginning to slip away from him. Davenport would take over if he didn’t step in now.
‘You mentioned pleading guilty,’ he said a little more sharply than he’d intended. ‘Is that what you wish to do in this case?’
‘Ah! Now that rather depends on what you intend to charge me with, doesn’t it, Chief Inspector? I mean, all Chloe and I were doing really was looking for a bit of spare change. I’ll admit there was some peripheral damage, but—’
‘Peripheral damage? Oh, no, Mr Davenport, I’m afraid it’s far more serious than that. You and Miss Tyler are looking at some very serious charges: five burglaries, theft, criminal damage and murder.’
‘Murder?’ Davenport’s voice rose sharply, the bantering tone suddenly gone. ‘You can’t be serious? And five burglaries? That’s utterly ridiculous! I may be guilty of a bit of pilfering, and possibly – I say possibly – what you call burglary, but only out of necessity when I have no other means of support. But I have never hurt anyone in my life, so let’s get this misunderstanding cleared up now.’
‘There is no misunderstanding,’ Paget told him, ‘so I suggest you stop trying to treat this as if it’s some sort of schoolboy prank. These are serious charges, and I think you would be wise to reconsider your position regarding whether or not you wish to have a solicitor present.
‘Oh, yes, and Forensic will need your clothes – all of them.’
‘Strange sort of bloke,’ Ormside mused, referring to Josh Davenport when he and Paget were reviewing the transcripts at the end of the day. ‘But then if he’s one of that lot from Cambridge, what can you expect? And he really doesn’t like solicitors, does he? Not even after you warned him several times that he could be facing serious charges. Good job that’s on the tape.’
In Davenport’s opinion, solicitors went out of their way to make relatively simple matters more complicated than they really were, and the result rarely had anything to do with justice, so he wanted no part of them. He stuck to the story regarding the burglaries. He admitted to breaking into the house on Dunbar Road with Chloe, but only, he claimed, because they were hungry and desperate. He said they had left Broadminster two days later for Chester, which was exactly what Chloe Tyler had told them. He and Chloe had gone to stay with a friend of his from his Cambridge days, now doing postgraduate work at the university there. Normally, Davenport told them, he
would not have imposed on his friend’s good nature, but he needed a place to stay until he felt well enough to try for another job, and had asked his friend if he could bring Chloe with him because she had been good to him while he was ill, and they were both flat broke.
The day staff had gone and the incident room was quiet except for the burbling gasps of Ormside’s coffee pot.
‘I can’t see those two committing a murder,’ Ormside said as he closed the file. ‘They’re not even very good at thieving, and young Coleman certainly isn’t cut out for it.’
Davenport had told them that when he became ill and lost his job at the car wash on Prince Street, it was Chloe who had looked after him as best she could, so when she said she was going to break into a house to look for cash, and he couldn’t dissuade her, he felt the least he could do was go with her to make sure she wasn’t caught.
When asked how the house was chosen, he said Chloe had had her eye on it for some time, because she knew that the man who owned it worked the evening shift at one of the clubs.
Ormside had spoken to the proprietor of the car wash on Prince Street, and he confirmed that Josh had worked there until just before Christmas, but when he failed to come in to work two days running, someone else was hired to take his place. ‘Don’t know what happened to him,’ he admitted when Ormside asked, ‘but then, that’s not my problem, is it? Not when I’ve got a business to run.’
There had been no hesitation when Davenport was asked to give the name and address of his friend in Chester, and the man had confirmed Davenport’s story when Ormside contacted him by phone. ‘Shame about old Josh,’ he’d said. ‘Nice chap; brilliant in many ways, but just can’t hack it in the real world. Turns up here every so often. Give him a bed, feed him up, but then I’ll wake up one morning to find him gone.’
When Davenport was asked who did the damage in the Dunbar Road burglary, he said it was Chloe who did that. ‘She was so frustrated when she couldn’t find any money that she just lashed out with that bar of hers. Which,’ he continued, ‘was another reason I decided to take her with me to Chester. I thought she might do something daft if I left her in that state.’
Paget swirled the remains of his coffee in the bottom of the mug as he said, ‘Which means, if we accept as fact that Josh and Chloe only did the one burglary, then it looks as if Forsythe is right, and the rest of the burglaries were staged as a lead-up to the killing of Laura Holbrook. But two people working together? If that is the case, then it seems at least likely that one of them had to be Holbrook himself. Especially if there is any truth to the suggestion that he was unhappy about the way Laura had taken over. But who is the other one? Susan Chase? She was certainly in there straight away. Moira Ballantyne is another possibility, as is Tim Bryce – he had something to gain by getting rid of her. Peggy Goodwin had good reason to hate Laura, but why wait a couple of years before killing her? But one thing we do know – provided Trevor Ballantyne isn’t lying through his teeth, and I can’t think of a reason why he would do that – Holbrook himself couldn’t have killed Laura; his partner has to be the one who did that. I know, I know,’ he said as he saw the look Ormside gave him, ‘your money is still on Moira, but I think I’m leaning more and more toward Susan Chase. She’s just too good to be true.
‘But that’s for another day,’ he said, glancing guiltily at the clock. Tonight was to be Grace’s first painting lesson, and he didn’t want to be late getting home.
‘Just one thing before you go,’ Ormside said. ‘Laura Holbrook’s funeral is at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning at St Margaret’s, which would make it roughly eleven forty-five at the cemetery for the interment, according to the chap I spoke to. You planning on going?’
‘To the cemetery, yes,’ said Paget as he shrugged into his coat. ‘After all, you never know who will turn up at funerals, do you?’
Nineteen
Friday, March 13
The cemetery was on the side of a hill. It wasn’t a steep slope, but the long grass was wet and slippery underfoot, the results of a shower during the night, and some of the ladies in their open-toed and high-heeled shoes didn’t look too happy as they followed the casket to the graveside.
There was quite a large gathering around the grave. Simon Holbrook and his late wife’s sister, Susan Chase, stood next to the vicar, and slightly behind them and to one side stood Trevor and Moira Ballantyne. Beside them were several people who seemed to be more or less on their own, possibly friends or distant relatives. Tim Bryce was there as well. He had placed himself at a respectful distance from his uncle, but in such a way that Simon Holbrook was bound to see him there.
At the bottom end of the open grave, facing the vicar, was another small group, some of whom Tregalles was able to identify as members of the badminton club, headed by Bernard Fiske, while on the side opposite Holbrook, completing the circle, were what must have been almost the entire staff of Holbrook Micro-Engineering Laboratories, led by Peggy Goodwin.
But there was one man who stood a little apart from the rest as if not quite sure which group, if any, he should join. Fiftyish, perhaps, grey hair, slim, very well-dressed. He stood with head bowed, hands resting on the handle of the furled umbrella in front of him.
The two detectives stayed well back from the graveside. They were there only to observe.
The interment service was brief, and the casket was being lowered when Tregalles spoke. ‘Take a look at sister Susie,’ he muttered. ‘See how she’s holding on to Holbrook’s arm? Doesn’t look to me as if he’s grieving all that much, either.’
Tregalles might well be right in his assessment of the situation, but Paget couldn’t help thinking back to his own tragic loss, when he should have been there at the graveside to say his last goodbye to Jill. But he hadn’t been there; hadn’t even known the funeral was taking place. Oh, there were pictures, and friends had done their best to tell him everything. His old boss and close friend, Bob McKenzie, had even had the ceremony and the interment videotaped, but it wasn’t the same. He had no actual memories! Nothing. The weeks immediately following Jill’s death had been taken from his life as neatly as if they had been surgically removed. Gone, never to be recaptured, and he felt cheated as he watched the casket containing Laura Holbrook’s body disappear into the ground.
His thoughts were interrupted by a nudge from Tregalles. ‘Take a look at Mrs Ballantyne,’ the sergeant said softly.
Paget scanned the faces around the graveside. Almost everyone’s eyes were cast down as the vicar read the closing prayer, but Moira Ballantyne’s eyes were fixed on Holbrook and Susan Chase. It was a speculative look, and there was something about the set of her jaw, the slightly narrowed eyes, and the way her head was tilted that suggested she was trying very hard to work something out.
The service ended with the lowering of the casket while Holbrook and Susan Chase each came forward to drop a single rose as it disappeared from view. The vicar closed his book and stepped away.
One by one, people began to leave, some pausing to say a few words to Simon and Susan, while others simply drifted away to their cars lined up on the road below. The man they’d observed standing apart from the others waited until the very last to approach Holbrook. Simon said something to Susan Chase, who moved away and began to walk slowly down the hill by herself. The detectives were too far away to hear any words, but it seemed to Paget that there was a certain stiffness between the two men. The man stepped back, said something, then turned and walked rapidly away. Holbrook followed more slowly to join Susan, who stood waiting at the bottom of the hill.
The grey-haired man was in his car and pulling out by the time the two detectives reached the road, and more from habit than for any other reason, Paget took out his notebook and jotted down the numbers on the fast receding plate.
‘Just curious,’ he said by way of explanation, ‘but let’s find out who he is anyway.’
‘Probably a solicitor by the look of him,’ Tregalles said as he copied the numbe
rs in his own book, ‘but it shouldn’t take long to find out since he’s driving a brand new Mercedes.’
‘Fiona wants you to ring her,’ Ormside told Paget when he and Tregalles returned to Charter Lane. ‘The super’s gone home with some sort of bilious attack – probably the flu by the sound of it, so he won’t be able to attend a meeting with Mr Brock this afternoon, and he’d like you to stand in for him. Fiona says she has the information you’ll need if you would like to study it beforehand.’
Paget eyed the sergeant stonily. An afternoon in a meeting with Chief Superintendent Brock was not his idea of how to end the week. ‘Did she say when, where and what it is all about?’ he asked.
Ormside wrinkled his nose in a way that told Paget he wasn’t going to like the answer. ‘Clear-up rates and the lack of,’ the sergeant said. ‘Two o’clock in Mr Brock’s office.’
Paget was about to leave when he caught sight of the calendar on Ormside’s desk. Friday the thirteenth! He might have known.
Saturday afternoon, March 14
‘Just going to pop down the road to Milverton’s,’ Peggy Goodwin told her mother as she slipped a coat over her shoulders. ‘Won’t be long. Anything you need?’
‘Don’t think so, love. Oh, yes there is, come to think of it,’ her mother said. ‘Bring back a lasagne for supper. Arthur likes that, and you’ll be staying, will you?’
Peggy paused at the door. She had a lot of work waiting for her at home, and she wasn’t keen on the deep-dish frozen lasagne her mother was so fond of, but she knew her mother would be disappointed if she said no. ‘Yes, I’ll be staying,’ she said, ‘but I shall have to leave soon after. I have a lot to do at home.’